Table of Contents☆ Please rate my recipe by clicking on the starts – this helps me to improve and
others to find delicious recipes. Thanks! ☆
Recipe Video
Healthy carrot cake: It is sweet, moist & crunchy!
This healthy carrot cake is creamy, moist, sweet, full of healthy ingredients and has a thick creamy frosting on top. In fact, you can make it ahead to satisfy your cravings for sweets and reach your health goals. On the whole, this recipe is simple, fast, no added sugar inside – a healthy, low calorie carrot cake with simple always at hand ingredients.
No sugar and naturally sweet
The sweetness in this healthy carrot cake comes from natural sweeteners – carrots, raisins and dates. In fact, there is no need to add any refined sugar. Still, the cakes turn out very sweet. The combination of dates and raisins gives it a very sweet and at the same time very natural taste. Regularly the cakes overloaded with refined sugar are extremely sweet and you do not taste any other ingredients. In contrast to cakes overloaded with sugar, this carrot cake is full of sweetness, but at the same time you definitely taste other natural ingredients in it: walnuts, cinnamon, raisins and incredibly creamy sugar free frosting.
Healthy sugar free and super creamy frosting in 1 minute
Moreover, the creamy frosting is the quickest frosting you will ever make in your life – just mix cream cheese and finely chopped dates – and you are done. In any case, no need to turn on the mixer, whip the cream and overload it with sugar. In fact you can make simple, quick and very rich frosting for your new favorite and perfect cake in 1 minute.
Lower in calories and incredibly rich in taste
Summing up, this delicious healthy carrot cake is half the calories, still it has a rich and creamy taste. It is sweet, moist and crunchy – you can prepare it as a birthday cake and no one would ever know that it is low in calories! I also love preparing it for my toddler – it is her favorite cake and she loves having 2-3 servings at once.
More sugar free and healthy cakes
Are you looking for more sugar free recipes? Check my healthy banana bread recipe LINK. In brief, you do not need any sugar to make it, the ingredients are very available and not expensive. The bread turns out very soft and full of natural flavor.
What about a low calorie chocolate bar LINK without any sugar? This recipe contains only 4 ingredients, is easy and perfect if you need a healthy snack in between your meals. In case you like coconut, check my sugar free bounty bars. Incredibly easy, no added sugar and the crunchy chocolate on top makes my absolute favorite snack.
If you are looking for more healthy desserts and cakes, choose your favorite one under this link.
How to prepare healthy carrot cake
Ingredients
- 200 g whole wheat flour
- 5 g baking powder
- 5 g cinnamon
- 2 g salt
- 2 g baking soda
- 60 g dates + 70 g hot water
- 1 egg
- 60 g oil
- 40 g melted butter
- 100 g buttermilk
- 150 g finely grated carrots
- 55 raisins
- 55 g walnuts
Topping
- 140 g cream cheese
- 20 g dates
Instructions
- Pour 70 g hot water into 60 g dates. Let them soak for 30 minutes.
- Do not drain the water, blend dates in a blender with water.
- Add 1 egg, 60 g oil, 40 g melted butter and 100 g buttermilk to the date paste in a blender. Mix and blend.
- In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients: 200 g whole wheat flour, 5g baking powder, 2 g baking soda*, 5 g cinnamon and 2 g salt.
- Combine wet ingredients and dry ingredients.
- Then add 150 g finely grated carrots, 55 g raisins and 55 g walnuts. Mix. The dough turns out rather thick, so it is difficult to stir. That is a perfect consistency.
- Place in a baking form (mine is 10X28) and bake in a preheated oven at 180 C / 355 F for 60 minutes.
- Mix the 140 g cream cheese with 20 g finely chopped dates and spread on the hot cake.
Notes
Nutrition
Tips & hacks for the recipe
*Turn on the oven beforehand to have a temperature at 180C (or 356F) when you put a healthy carrot cake inside. If you put a cake in an oven that is not heated to this temperature, the cake could not bake through.
*Melt the butter beforehand. Put a bowl with butter in the pot with hot water and heat it slowly. Once 60% of butter is melted, turn off the heat. Melt the rest
*It is important to finely grate a carrot. It should give a cake ist juiciness. If you use coarsely grated carrot, a cake can turn dry.
*Do not omit baking soda – this recipe needs both baking soda and baking powder. If you will only add one, the recipe will not work.
Top health benefits and facts
There are many options of healthy substitutes for sugar in carrot cake. First option is to reduce the sugar and use less of it. This will make a carrot cake definitely healthier. Second is to use natural sweeteners instead of sugar for example agave syrup, maple syrup, date syrup. And finally my favorite option, I am using in my recipe – substitute sugar by natural ingredients. I am using dates, raisins and carrots. In fact, this way there is no need to add any sugar or sweeteners at all.
You can definitely use whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose flour in a carrot cake. For example, instead of all-purpose flour, you can take a mixture (50%/50%) of all-purpose and whole wheat flour. In my recipe, I use only whole wheat flour. First I sift whole wheat flour through a sieve and next I add bran that has not been sifted to the sifted flour. As a result of using whole wheat flour the carrot cake is richer in fiber and nutrients.
Indeed it is very easy to make a healthy cream cheese frosting for a carrot cake. The quickest and easiest way to make it is to mix a cream cheese with a sweetener and cover a carrot cake with it. For instance you can mix a cream cheese with a fluid natural sweetener, like maple syrup or agave syrup. Surprisingly you can make a cream cheese frosting completely without sugar. For this in my recipe I finely chop dates and mix it with cream cheese. Then I top a hot carrot cake with this delicious and sugar free frosting.
One piece of carrot cake contains between 350-600 calories. Unquestionably the amount of calories depends on the ingredients added to the carrot cake. If it contains a lot of sugar and oil it will make it higher in calories. Especially the frosting made with sugar powder and water is very calorie dense. Naturally if you want a carrot cake that is lower in calories and contains healthy ingredients, make it at home yourself. My recipe contains 213 calories, is super easy and can be prepared in advance to enjoy a healthy carrot cake during the whole week.
There are some healthy add-ins for carrot cake that will make it more nutrient dense and sweet without adding any refined sugar. First you can add nuts (I am adding walnuts). Naturally nuts will add healthy fats to your carrot cake. You can toast nuts for 2-3 minutes in a pan without oil to make them even tastier. Second, you can add dried fruit to sweeten your carrot cake, but without any refined sugar. I am adding dates and raisins in my recipe, this makes a cake very sweet and there is no need to add any sugar. This way the carrot cake is healthier and full of natural sweetness.
In brief it is very easy to reduce the calorie count in carrot cake:
– First reduce the amount of sugar. You can for example just use less sugar or replace sugar with natural sweeteners (like syrup, dried fruit, fruit puree).
– Second, replace sour cream with kefir or buttermilk. In comparison to sour cream, buttermilk and kefir contain less calories and are pretty protein rich.
– Third, replace white flour or at least one part of it with whole wheat flour. Whole wheat flour contains more fiber and as a result you feel fuller for a longer period of time.
To make healthy carrot cake low calorie, reduce the amount of sugar it contains. In fact a lot of calories come from sugar, so it will reduce around 20-30% calories you consume. Surprisingly substituting sour cream with buttermilk or kefir also reduces a lot of calories. In my recipe, I am not adding any sour cream or sugar and one serving is very low calorie.
In fact it is very easy to make healthy carrot cake low in sugar. First you can reduce the amount of refined sugar you add. Second you can substitute refined sugar by natural sweeteners like maple or agave syrup. Finally the best one is to leave out the sugar completely. In my recipe I do not use any sweetener and add carrots, dates and raisins to make a cake naturally sweet without any sugar.
