Soft, chewy and perfect for spring! These Vegan Carrot Cake Cookies have a sweet, spiced cake-like texture and are loaded with carrots. Drizzled with a simple vegan glaze for the perfect bite.
Spring is here and so is carrot cake season! Despite carrots being a heart vegetable that are widely available year-round, spring is all about carrot cake. The spiced flavour paired with sweet carrots is an unmatched combination. Finished with a tangy glaze and you have one of the best desserts. Just like carrot cake, these cookies are soft and filled with cozy spices like cinnamon and nutmeg.
Like always, these vegan cookies are super easy to make. You can whip up a batch in under 30 minutes! So whether you’re craving an afternoon snack, a quick breakfast, or a sweet dessert – this is the recipe for you!
Why you’ll love this recipe:
- Soft, chewy, and crispy on the edges.
- Perfect as a snack or dessert!
- The taste of spring in every bite.
Top tips for making Vegan Carrot Cake Cookies:
- Make sure your oven is preheated. To avoid over or under baking cookies, be patient and place the cookies in the oven after it’s fully preheated. To ensure your oven is properly preheated, we highly recommend getting an oven thermometer.
- Beat butter longer than you think. To get the proper texture and air in cookies, beat the butter and sugar for at least 6-7 minutes.
- Don’t overmix the flour. Overmixing flour can result in tough cookies. To avoid this do the bulk of your mixing at the butter/sugar stage and just mix the flour until just combined.
- Adjust to your taste. Some like it a bit more spiced than others, so feel free to adjust the spices to your liking.
- Measure out your cookies with a cookie scoop. For a quick and easy way to make evenly sized cookies, a cookie scoop is a great kitchen gadget. This helps your cookies to bake evenly.
- Bake slightly under for chewy, gooey cookies. If you like soft, chewy cookies like we do under-baking the cookies by about 1 minute is the secret! But don’t worry, we’ve already taken that into consideration to the timing of this recipe.
Ingredient Notes:
- All-Purpose Flour – We bake these recipes with No Name Unbleached All-Purpose Flour, but it will work with any brand. If you want to make this gluten free we recommend using a 1-1 Gluten Free Baking Flour. Note that we have not tested this recipe with gluten free flour, but feel it should work.
- Vegan Unsalted Butter – We use Becel Plant Based Sticks in these cookies, but other vegan butter substitutes should as well.
- White Sugar – Note that white sugar is vegan in Canada, but in some places white sugar is processed with animal bones. If it is important to you to avoid this we recommend looking for a white sugar substitute you enjoy.
- Brown Sugar – We use a light brown sugar but you can also use a dark brown sugar.
- Salt – Salt is key to enhancing flavours, please don’t skip this in the recipe.
- Flax Eggs – We use flax eggs as our vegan egg substitute but others should work as well. In fact we’ve tested many vegan egg substitutes so you can pick which one works best for you.
Recipe FAQ:
How do I make my cookies the same size and round?
The key to perfectly sized and round cookies is two tools: a cookie scoop and a round cookie cutter. Use a cookie scoop to get similar sized cookies and so that they bake evenly. For round cookies, we like to use Cloudy Kitchen’s cookie scoot technique. Use a round cookie cutter, slightly bigger than the cookie itself, and as soon as they’re out of the oven use the cookie cutter around the cookie to scoot it into a round shape.
Can you freeze cookies?
Yes! You can freeze them at multiple points in the recipe. Freeze the dough in a log, in pre-portioned cookie dough balls, or after baking them. If you’re freezing after baking don’t glaze them, allow them to cool completely, place in an air-tight container, and freeze. When ready to eat, remove from the freezer and preheat the oven to 250F. Once preheated, place cookies on a lined baking sheet and bake until just reheated – about 5 minutes. Then you can glaze them if you want.
Vegan Carrot Cake Cookies
Ingredients
Carrot Cake Cookies
- 150 g vegan butter
- 175 g white sugar
- 100 g brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 flax eggs
- 300 g all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- pinch cloves
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp baking soda
- 1 cup shredded carrots, squeezed
Easy Vegan Glaze
- 120 g (1 cup) icing sugar
- 3 tbsp non-dairy milk
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F
- Mix flax eggs and set aside to thicken.
- Add vegan butter and both sugars to a stand mixer and beat until light and fluffy – about 5 to 7 minutes.
- Mix thickened flax eggs, vanilla extract, and almond extract. Turn the mixer on medium-low speed and add the flax egg mixture until combined.
- Add flour, baking soda, salt, and spices to the butter mixture and beat until just combined. Careful not to overmix the flour. Fold in the shredded carrot.
- Using a cooking scoop, scoop dough onto a lined baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake for 11-12 minutes or until golden.
- Once baked remove from the oven and allow the cookies to rest on the hot baking sheet for an additional 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
- To make the glaze, combine icing sugar, non-dairy milk, and vanilla extract until smooth. Drizzle over cooled cookies.
Video
Pin it for later:
