Hey there! Welcome or welcome back to Cute Cuisine. These little gluten-free, vegan carrot cake cupcakes are easy and quick to make. These gluten-free, vegan carrot cake cupcakes are moist, packed with fibers, relatively low on sugar, and low on processed carbohydrates.

This post is the follow to my previous post (Carrot cake cupcakes). I wanted to make a gluten-free, vegan version of those cupcakes for those who have food allergies or who are on a vegan diet.

“Gluten-free baking can often be dry so it is important to add moisture. This can be achieved by increasing the amount of vegan butter or oil, adding fruit such as applesauce or pumpkin puree, or using brown sugar rather than white sugar.” These cupcakes include applesauce and coconut oil as well as brown sugar.

I made the carrot cake cupcakes in preparation for Easter. Again this batch was a small batch. I made 4 cupcakes because our household is small.

Happy baking!

Ingredients /For 4 cupcakes/

• 1 tablespoon flaxseed meal or flaxseed + 2,5 tablespoons water (this acts as an egg substitute)
• 25 ml oil – 2 tablespoons (I used melted coconut oil but you can use other neutral flavour vegetable oil.)
• 20 ml honey or maple syrup – 2 tablespoons (Honey is more accessible for me.)
• vanilla extract
• 80 g applesauce
• 35 g brown sugar
• 15 g white sugar – 1 tablespoon
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• dash of cinnamon, a tiny pinch of nutmeg, and a pinch of ginger (Optional. If you are not a fan, you can leave it.)
• 60 ml plant-based milk alternative (Of your choice, I used cashew milk.)
• 55 g almond meal
• 40 g ground quick oats
• 40 g chickpea flour/gram flour
• 30 g chopped walnuts
• 2 small or 1 big carrot (Grate it with a hand grater or use a food processor on pulse to grate it.)

For the frosting

• 80 g Violife vegan cream cheese
• 1 teaspoon erythritol-stevia powder (2 g) (You can use regular sugar.)
• 2 teaspoon plant-based milk alternative

Instructions

1. Firstly, gather and measure all the necessary ingredients.
2. Afterward, prepare the flax “eggs” in a big mixing bowl.
3. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 176 °C (350 degrees F). Butter and flour 4 holes in your muffin pan with oil or vegan cooking spray and dust with gluten-free flour (adjust number/size of pans if altering batch size). Then shake out excess, set aside.
4. To flax “eggs”, add applesauce, plant-based milk alternative, and vanilla extract, whisk to combine. Next, add oil (if you use coconut oil, melt it first) and maple syrup or honey, whisk to combine.
5. After that in a different bowl add all the other ingredients: brown sugar, white sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder, spices, almond meal, ground quick oats, gram flour, chopped walnuts, and grated carrots.
6. Pour the ‘wet’ ingredient mixture into your ‘dry’ ingredients, and mix them well.
7. The batter should have a pourable consistency. If too thick, adjust it with some plant-based milk.
8. Divide evenly in the muffin tins. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until deep golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
9. Remove from oven and let rest in the muffin pan for 15 minutes. Then carefully invert onto cooling racks to let cool completely.
10. Once cooled, you can serve as is or frost!

1. For frosting, combine vegan cream cheese, plant-based milk of your choice, and erythritol-stevia powder (or sugar) in the bowl, and stir until creamy, well-combined. You can add more sweetener if you desire. This was sweet enough for me. You can also add some grated lemon zest if you like it. I simply used a spoon for decorating the cupcakes with the frosting.

This amount makes about 4 cupcakes.

One cupcake provides 363 calories, 20 grams of fat, 38 grams of carbohydrates, 10 grams of protein.

Happy baking!

My recipe was inspired by the Minimalist Baker. Thank you.