Eggless carrot cake

Name: Eggless carrot cake
Prep time: 50 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 80 min
Ingredients: 220 grams bleached all-purpose flour; 10 mL baking powder; 2.5 mL ground cinnamon; 2.5 mL ground ginger; 2.5 mL ground nutmeg; 2.5 mL baking soda; 1.25 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt; 125 mL canola oil; 250 grams light brown sugar; 188 mL sour cream (14% fat); 15 mL orange zest; 5 mL pure vanilla extract; 375 mL finely grated carrots; 95 grams icing sugar; 115 grams unsalted butter (room temperature); 250 grams Philadelphia cream cheese (full fat, regular) (cold); 5 mL vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract); 15 mL orange zest (optional)

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This eggless carrot cake is layered with thick cream cheese frosting to make the best carrot cake recipe without eggs!

Slice of carrot cake on a blue plate with striped napkin and fork.

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Carrot cake without eggs

With the success of the eggless chocolate cake, eggless banana bread, and healthier pumpkin bread (also without eggs), it seemed reasonable to imagine that making a carrot cake without eggs would be possible.

In this cake recipe, I would have probably used 3 large eggs, which is roughly 150 grams of eggs. To replace them, I used the following baking substitution: 190 mL of full-fat sour cream. The sour cream provides both moisture and fat, like an egg would have. It may not have the same emulsifying properties as the egg, but this worked well in this recipe.

Leavening agents in cakes

Using an acidic ingredient like sour cream in a cake batter means that you need to use two chemical leaveners, baking powder and baking soda. The baking soda is there to help neutralize some of that acidity so that the baking powder can do its job of helping cakes rise when the cake is in the oven, and not prematurely.

Two-bowl method for mixing

Cake recipes that are made with softened butter are mixed using the creaming method, where the sugar and butter are mixed together for a long time. This incorporates air into the batter, leading to softer, fluffier cakes that are less dense.

For this cake, I decided to use canola oil instead of butter because I wanted to have a cake that was tender, even if it has to be refrigerated. Remember oil is liquid at room temperature and still fluid even in the refrigerator, whereas butter is solid. This leads to a more tender mouthfeel, even when the cake is cold.

Using oil means you can use a different mixing method to make the batter: the two-bowl method, just like for muffins. Much to my surprise, the layers of cake baked flat, without having to use cake strips. You could level the tops if you want very flat, perfectly even layers to stack, but as you can see from the photos, without trimming the tops, I still had a fairly flat finish.

Making thick cream cheese frosting with less icing sugar

The best frosting for carrot cake is cream cheese frosting. It's what people expect and sometimes the frosting is the main reason people eat carrot cake or order it in restaurants.

The secret to making a thick cream cheese frosting with less icing sugar is to first cream the butter with the icing sugar before adding the cream cheese. This way the icing sugar is coated with fat, thereby delaying or preventing it from drawing the water out of the cream cheese.

This mixing method leads to a more stable cream cheese frosting that you can make with a lot less icing sugar than most! I've used it for other layer cakes, like this chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting and this cranberry cardamom cake.

Here are some of my favourite tools and baking pans to make layer cake recipes like this one:

Kitchen-Aid Artisan mixer (Amazon)
Oxo whisk (Amazon)
Wilton 6-inch cake pans (Amazon)
Cooling rack (Amazon)
Ateco mini offset spatula (Amazon)
Cake tester (Amazon)
Ateco turntable (Amazon)

Frequently asked questions

Can I make this without raisins?

This carrot cake recipe is made without raisins, nuts, coconut, or pineapple. If you want a carrot cake with raisins, you can add them to the cake batter at the same time as the shredded carrot. Add 125 mL–250 mL (½ cup–1 cup) of raisins and/or nuts to this recipe. I don't recommend adding canned pineapple because it's quite wet and would throw off the ratios in the recipe.

How do you store this cake?

In general, if you are going to be eating layer cakes within a day, you can store them at room temperature, assuming your room isn't too hot and it's not summer. To be safe, it's best to store this eggless carrot cake in the refrigerator, preferably covered, especially because this is a "naked" cake, meaning the sides aren't fully frosted. They may dry out faster.

Why does my carrot cake seem dense?

If you store your carrot cake in the fridge, make sure to let it warm up at room temperature a little before eating it. Otherwise, the frosting will be quite firm because of the butter, which hardens at colder temperature. In general, fridge-cold cakes are firmer and you should give them time at room temperature to soften before eating.

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A slice of carrot cake layer cake with cream cheese frosting on a pale blue plate with a fork and striped linen napkin.

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