These vegan carrot cake bars are easy to make, moist, loaded with caramelized shredded carrots, perfectly spiced, and topped with a generous crumb topping made with pecans, cinnamon and brown sugar. Gluten-free Nutfree options

Recipe Snapshot

  • Prep time: 20 minutes
  • Cook time: 40 minutes
  • Total time: 60 minutes
  • Yield: 9
  • Category: Dessert
  • Cuisine: American

Ingredients

For the caramelized carrots

  • 2 to 2 ½ cups of grated or shredded carrots
  • 2 tablespoons maple syrup
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • ½ teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon vegan butter or oil

For the dry ingredients

  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • ¼ cup almond flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon baking soda
  • 3/4 to 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/8 teaspoon all spice
  • 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • Zest of half a small orange or zest of half of lime
  • ¼ cup chopped dates

For the wet ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon flax seed meal mixed in with 3 tablespoons of water
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 3/4 cup or more nondairy milk
  • 3 tablespoons oil
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

For the topping

  • 1 ½ tablespoons brown sugar
  • ½ teaspoon cinnamon
  • 3 to 4 tablespoons chopped pecans

Method

  1. Make your caramelized carrots: add all of the ingredients under carrots to a skillet over medium heat and mix really well until the butter melts, and the maple syrup and sugar coat the carrots.
  2. Continue to cook for 13-15 minutes or until the carrots don’t feel liquidity. The carrots will keep leaking moisture into the mixture so you just want the maple to get absorbed into the carrots and the excess moisture to evaporate.
  3. It shouldn’t be absolutely dry but it should also not have any kind of film of water on the skillet. Then take off heat.
  4. Make the cake bar batter: In a bowl mix all the dry ingredients, the flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, all spice, nutmeg, salt and mix well.
  5. To the bowl of the flour ingredients add the flax egg, sugar, oil, vanilla and ¾ cup nondairy milk. Mix until almost combined, if the mixture is too thick add in another tablespoon of milk. You want it to be like muffin batter, you don’t want it too thin like a pancake batter but slightly thick
  6. Then add in the dates, and zest. Add in 3/4 of caramelized carrots and mix in.
  7. Transfer to parchment line, 8x8 or 9x9 inch baking dish. Even it out. Top with the remaining carrot mixture.
  8. Make the topping: In a bowl mix the cinnamon sugar topping by mixing the sugar, cinnamon and pecans. Then sprinkle this all over the batter. Then bake at 350F (170C) for 35-40 minutes.
  9. Check at 35-minute mark, if the toothpick comes out clean or almost clean then it’s done.
  10. Let it sit for 10 minutes before removing from the pan. Cool for another 10-15 mins then slice and serve. Storage: store on the counter for the day in a covered container. Refrigerate for upto 5 days

Kiyaan Singh’s Kitchen Note

Keep this recipe as a working base: cook once as written, then adjust spice, texture, and serving style for your own table.