These carrot cake bars are easy to make, super moist, packed with carrots and are topped with a dreamy cream cheese frosting. You can make them with all-purpose, whole wheat or gluten-free flour.
Here’s a really simple Easter dessert. I’ve been making the layer cake version of this recipe since 2009. I make it every year for Easter, and every year, people ask me for the recipe.
If you’re looking for something super simple but incredibly tasty, this is it!
Ingredients
Here’s an overview of everything you’ll need.
Cake base
The recipe was adapted from my Healthy Carrot Cake, which was adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s carrot cake recipe.
I used 25% less sugar, 60% applesauce and 40% oil instead of 100% oil, less salt, and a bit more carrots.
The cake recipe has three layers, but I know not everybody needs or wants a 3-layer cake, so I halved everything for a 8″x8″ pan.
So here we have a bar version.
These bars are easy to make and take about 23 minutes to bake, so they’re perfect for a last-minute event. You’ll need to let the bars cool completely before frosting, which takes just over an hour, so keep that in mind.
The frosting
This frosting is less sugary than your typical cream cheese frosting. It’s my Healthier Cream Cheese Frosting that I use in every recipe that requires cream cheese frosting.
If you can’t have dairy, you could use my Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting, which is made with maple syrup, coconut milk/yogurt and oil.
How to make them
Here you can see it’s a super basic cake base recipe. No egg separating, creaming butter, or anything.
The full recipe is below.
Some people like step-by-step photos, so here they are. If you find them useless, please just keep scrolling. 🙂
The carrots don’t need to be finely grated. I used the grater attachment on my food processor, and it worked great.
If you live outside of the US or Canada, be sure to read the notes concerning cream cheese under the recipe.
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Can I add nuts and pineapple?
Walnuts, pecans or raisins would be okay to add to the batter. I wouldn’t add pineapple or anything liquid because the cake base would be soggy.
Can I use almond/coconut/whatever flour?
You have to use a type of flour that’s meant as a 1-to-1 sub for all-purpose flour. So that means no almond flour, coconut flour, buckwheat, oat flour, rice flour, etc., as those aren’t interchangeable with all-purpose flour.
If you’re looking for a grain-free recipe, try these Almond Flour Carrot Muffins. That recipe uses almond and coconut flour.
I’ve tested these bars with both Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 Gluten-free Baking Flour and King Arthur Flour Gluten-free Measure for Measure Flour. Both work great.
The gluten-free version, after cooling and made with one of the brands I mentioned above, really tastes like it was made with all-purpose flour.
Can I use a different type of oil?
I’ve listed canola or vegetable oil, but you can use any neutral-tasting oil, such as grapeseed or olive oil.
You can taste the olive oil when the cake is hot and fresh out of the oven, but you won’t be able to taste it once it cools.
But don’t use a very flavorful or expensive olive oil. If you have light olive oil, that’s a great choice.
I haven’t tried coconut oil, but if you do, I’d recommend using refined coconut oil unless you want some coconut taste in the cake.
The cake wouldn’t be as moist if you used butter instead of oil. Butter is 80-82% fat, and oil is 100% fat, so it’s best to go with the oil for the moistest cake.
Sweetener
You can’t use a liquid sweetener in place of the granulated sugar. But you can use coconut sugar!
The cake will be darker in color, which you may not like if you like the orangeish color. But it does taste good.
This recipe already calls for 25% less sugar than the original, so I really don’t recommend reducing the sugar. Reducing it even more would result in a dry cake.
Can I use a different pan?
This recipe uses an 8”x8” pan, but here’s a handy pan conversion chart if you don’t have that size.
I don’t have the baking time for other sizes of pans, so you’ll just need to keep a close eye on the cake bars while they’re in the oven.
Decoration
You can go the natural route and use toasted pecans for a bit of crunchy richness. A single pecan per cake bar, or you could chop them up after roasting and sprinkle them all over the top.
For something extra tasty, you could use these maple syrup Candied Pecans or Maple Walnuts. With either one of those, place them on the cake just before serving or else the maple syrup will liquify and create some moisture around the nut.
If you don’t have pecans, a dusting of cinnamon looks nice.
For something more festive, my photographer got a 12-pack of bunnies and carrots for $4.99 from Target. The ingredients aren’t fantastic, but you can just remove them before eating.
How to freeze
You can freeze the bars frosted or unfrosted. Either way, they’ll last about three months.
To thaw them, put them in the fridge overnight or on the counter for about 1-2 hours or until thawed.
If you’d like to freeze the cake bars separate from the frosting, and then frost once thawed – that also works. Cream cheese frosting freezes great.
More treats for spring
I hope you’ll like these carrot cake bars! If you make them, please comment below to let me know what you think. Thanks! 🙂
❀
- Prep Time:
- Cook Time:
- Ready in:
- Yield: 16 bars
Ingredients
- 1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, or for gluten-free use 1 cup (138 grams) Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 Gluten-free Baking Flour or 1 cup (125 grams) King Arthur Flour Gluten-free Measure for Measure Flour
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 large eggs (50 grams each, out of shell), room temperature
- 3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated sugar
- 6 tablespoons (91 grams) unsweetened applesauce
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) canola or vegetable oil
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 7 oz (198 grams – 1 3/4 cups) grated and peeled carrots
- 1/3 cup (75 grams) unsalted butter, softened
- one 8-ounce package (250 grams) full-fat cream cheese, room temp
- 1/16 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup (120 grams) powdered sugar
Bars:
Cream Cheese Frosting:
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and line an 8”x8” (23 cm x 23 cm) pan with a piece of parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and then add the sugar, applesauce, oil and vanilla and mix until combined.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir just until combined.
- Then fold in the carrots only just until combined.
- Bake for 23 minutes. It’ll have browned a bit. The toothpick came out clean at 20 minutes, but I dug in with a fork, and it was still gooey in the middle. At 23 minutes, it was done.
- Let cool on a wire rack until completely cooled, about 70 minutes, before frosting.
- Beat the butter and cream cheese with an electric hand mixer or stand mixer until soft and smooth.
- Add the salt and vanilla and beat until combined. Add in the powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, and beat until fluffy.
- Spread over the cooled cake.
- Cut into 16 bars and top with pecans or Easter decorations.
- Cover leftovers and refrigerate for up to 4 days or freeze for up to 3 months.
Prepare the cake:
Prepare the frosting:
Notes
- I used the grater attachment on my food processor to grate the carrots, so they weren’t super finely grated.
Cake base adapted from from Smitten Kitchen’s carrot cake recipe
