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Carrot Cake Bars

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Dense and chewy, these date-sweetened, vegan carrot cake bars are packed with spicy flavor. Plus they’re soy-free and can be made gluten-free.

Carrot Cake Bars

I love getting recipe ideas from readers! Next to traveling and dining at vegan restaurants, it’s my favorite way to discover new foods. So I was thrilled to receive an email recently from Sharon Starr in San Francisco asking me to figure out the recipe for Whole Foods’ Vegan Carrot Spice Cake, which she described as “moist, dense and somewhat chewy.” I’m always up for a challenge (especially when it involves dessert), so I told her I would give it a try.

Before I get to the recipe, I have a little housekeeping to do. A few weeks ago I added a feature that should make searching for recipes a little easier for you. If you go to the top of the page and click on Recipe Index, you’ll see a new link to Master List of All Recipes. When you click on that, you’ll find a list of all the recipes on this blog, alphabetically by category, on one page. No photos, just titles. Now you have four ways to look for recipes: the search box in the upper right corner, by category (such as Salads), by tag/topic (such as Eat to Live), and this new page. You’ll also find this feature on the main Fatfree Vegan Recipes site, up in the top menu bar as Index. I hope it helps you find what you’re looking for.

Now on to this recipe:

Sharon sent a photo of the Whole Foods cake along with the ingredients list from the package. Her photo showed a dense bar, almost like a blondie, with lots of dark areas that I assume were the dates and raisins and just a few hints of orange from the carrots. The ingredient list was as follows: Carrots, Unsweetened Applesauce, Dates, Whole Wheat Flour, Raisins, Walnuts, Baking Powder, Vanilla Extract, Cinnamon, Ginger, Nutmeg, Allspice, Clove.

By law, ingredients must be listed on packages in decending order by weight, with the main ingredient listed first. Knowing the order of ingredients is a help, but it’s certainly not a formula, and if you don’t know the exact proportions, it’s hard to duplicate a recipe, especially a baked item. But I gave it my best shot. I began by weighing all the ingredients and deciding on a starting amount of my first ingredient, carrots. The 5 medium carrots I used weighed 7.4 ounces; once I had that measurement, I tailored the amounts of the other ingredients in descending order, using a little common sense and a lot of guesswork.

Carrot Cake Bars

In the end, I guessed wrong about the amount of flour. My desire to avoid too much refined starch probably had a lot to do with my underusing the flour (according to my calculations, I could have used almost twice as much and still been on target, weight-wise). So my bars came out moist and dense and a little chewy, but not cake-like. However, my family absolutely loved them, so much so that we ate the entire pan in one day.

I considered trying again, using more flour and baking powder, but we’d already blown our family’s weekly sugar budget because even though these treats are refined sugar-free, they still contain a lot of sugar from the dates and raisins. I decided having another batch around would be too much temptation. And besides, my husband told me to leave them alone–they were perfect this way.

I may make the recipe again, once my sugar high wears off, and aim for a cake-like bar next time. But I think these bars stand on their own as a different kind of dessert, somewhere between a raw “Larabar” and a piece of Impossible Pumpkin Pie. Thank you, Sharon, for sending me off on this quest!
Carrot Cake Bars

Carrot Cake Bars
5 from 3 votes
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Carrot Cake Bars

Course Breakfast, Dessert
Cuisine Vegan
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Servings 12
Calories 128 kcal
Author Susan Voisin

Ingredients

  • 10 medjool dates , pits removed (about 5.5 ounces)
  • 2 cups shredded carrots (from about 5 medium carrots)
  • 3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 1/2 cup raisins
  • 1 teaspoon double-strength vanilla extract (or 2 tsp. regular)
  • 1 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour , white whole wheat flour, or gluten-free flour (such as brown rice flour)
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 tablespoons chopped walnuts (optional)

Instructions

  1. Lightly spray or oil an 8×8-inch glass baking dish (or use a non-stick silicone pan). Preheat oven to 375F.
  2. Place the pitted dates in a food processor and pulse until the dates are chopped and begin to form a paste. Scrape them into a bowl and add all ingredients EXCEPT flour, baking powder, and walnuts. Stir until all ingredients are well-blended.
  3. Combine the flour and baking powder in a small bowl and mix well. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and stir until just blended. Spoon it into the prepared pan, sprinkle with walnuts if desired, and press them lightly into the batter with the back of a spoon. Bake for 30 minutes. Allow to cool before cutting into bars and serving.
Nutrition Facts
Carrot Cake Bars
Amount Per Serving (1 serving)
Calories 128 Calories from Fat 10
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 1.1g 2%
Sodium 57.2mg 2%
Total Carbohydrates 30.3g 10%
Dietary Fiber 3.6g 14%
Sugars 18.5g
Protein 2g 4%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

P.S. Try not to eat the whole pan!

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Dense and chewy, these date-sweetened, vegan carrot cake bars are packed with spicy flavor. Plus they're soy and gluten-free.

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Comments

  2. Thank you for posting this recipe — I’m not vegan, but I love carrot cake and am an avid food journaler, so I love that you post nutritional information on your blog. And I hate reduced fat or vegan cream cheese — so I can’t wait to try these bars!

    Reply

  7. Does this recipe call for baking POWDER or baking SODA? The instructions don’t match the ingredient list.

    Reply

  11. I think carrot cakes/bars are the best because they are so easy to do oil-free while still tasting delicious.

    I really like your combination & mixes of spices. I love your fearless, experimental attitude in the kitchen–I aspire to that :)!

    Reply

  12. What a lovely recipe and brave challenge – you are ever so talented and very inspirational. Thank you for sharing your ‘quest’ – I’m glad your family enjoyed the carrot cake bars – the next batch should be for you though, to meet your cakey desires.

    Reply

  13. Thankyou so much for a yummy gluten free ,soy free, sugar free recipe! I can’t wait to make this for my family!

    Reply

  18. I made these tonight!!! Fabulous and I agree with your husband – they are perfect how they are. (But if you do a cake version, I’d love to try that recipe, too!) I accidentally left out the ground ginger, but I’ll add it next time. I used cashews instead of walnuts and added a dollop of ND whipped topping to make it very decadent. Thank you, Susan!!!

    Reply

  19. Sounds delicious. I have not had any refined sugar since January, so having this will be a real treat! Thank you!

    Reply

  20. Hi Susan,

    These look great! I will have to wait until more people are around before I try these out, because I WILL want to eat the whole pan. 🙂

    xo

    moonwatcher

    Reply

  22. Susan, Carrot bars sound great just as all other recipes I’ve tried from you collection. I’ve been a vegatarian for quite sometime, but went vegan a few years ago. And a first I thought it would be a challange and sometimes it is when dining out. I do enjoy cheesecake on my b-day and my grandkids as well. I appreciate your recipes you have given me much insipation. I will be making carrot bars earky on the 4th before the temp. is above 90. Happy Holiday

    Reply

  23. I was wondering if I could use bananas in this recipe somehow? I have 3 that are a little too ripe for me to eat right now and I want to use them for something and this looks delicious!

    Reply

  25. What pretty looking bars! I look forward to making them. Also’, thanks for another way to search. You’re so thoughtful.

    Btw, I love your signature! 🙂

    Laina 🙂

    Reply

  26. I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, but everyone at work loved it. This is what I did.

    1 lb. bag whole baby carrots
    2 mini cups of applesauce
    1.5 cups raisins
    2 tsp vanilla extract
    1.5 tsp cinnamon
    0.5 tsp ground allspice
    0.5 tsp ground cloves
    3/4 cup whole wheat flour
    1 tsp baking powder
    1/4 cup walnuts

    Combine all ingredients in Blendtec. Cook at 375 for 45 minutes.

    Reply

  27. Thank you so much for this recipe! You should really call them “carrot crack bars,” because I suspect they’re as addictive. I’ve made them 3 times since you posted the recipe! Everyone loves them! Thanks again.

    Reply

  29. They do look good Susan. I add carrot to flapjacks (Scottish flapjacks made from oats, not pancakes) and they go lovely and caramelly, I bet they do in this cake too. Yum!

    Reply

  32. the carrot bars sounds lovely – I love dense over cakey!

    also wanted to say I love the masterlist index – sometimes that is all I want and the photos make indexes quite hard to wade through because they are not many on a page!

    Reply

  34. Susan, this was a delicious recipe though I did not have allspice, so I don’t know what I missed but I certainly could have eaten the whole pan in one sitting. I will say I did not think I cooked them long enough due to the very moistness of the cake. I made my own raw applesauce which may have caused this, but even being extremely moist(almost like undercooked brownies) it was still good to me. I did not have anyone else try them yet, though I suppose I must to be nice:)

    Reply

  35. These bars look delicious! A great alternative to cookies as a snack for my toddler. Do you think the recipe would work with packaged date paste?

    Reply

  36. These are great! I was tempted to stop before the flour and baking powder and just blend everything together and eat it raw, but I wanted to see the recipe through and I’m glad I did. I’ve polished off half the pan already. That said, I still want to try a raw version. Next time! Thanks for this recipe. I’ve never seen one like it and I think it has a lot of potential for experimentation.

    Reply

  37. This looks great! I’m delighted that you posted this. Carrot cake is a favorite and I am excited to sweeten with the dates as I’m not using sugar much these days. Might be trying these out this week! Thanks!

    Reply

  39. Thanks so much!! There’s a carrot-cake Lara bar, but it’s got pineapple in it & I’m mildly allergic to that, so here is a wonderful alternative!

    I will try it w/”ivory” teff flour, maybe cut with some arrowroot starch.

    Reply

  40. I made these the other night and can verify that they are awesome!! I did not have applesauce so I puréed 1.5 bananas for an equivalent volume, which worked out great in my opinion. Even the six-year-old sugar-crazy boys running around called them delicious — I’m not making that up!

    Reply

  41. Thanks for the recipe! I added a tbsp of agave to the recipe, toasted the bar once baked, and spread tofutti -better than cream cheese on top. Pretty darn delicious!

    Reply

  42. Thank you, thank you, thank you…yet another delicious recipe. Your blog is just an abundance of riches!

    I’m going on a road trip next week and these are coming with me.

    Reply

  43. Delicious! My daughter begged to take one to day camp today AND have one for breakfast (“No”), hubby stole 2 last night AND took 2 to work this morning (grrrr) and I just had one with coffee. The only negative thing about these is figuring out how to keep them around longer than a day!

    Reply

  45. Susan, thank you so much for taking up this challenge! I have always loved carrot cake and was eager to try these. My basic Cuisinart food processor was not powerful enough to chop the dates into a paste, so I added all the wet ingredients to help things along. I added the spices to the flour & baking powder because I thought it would blend better. The bars came out moist as promised, but all we could taste were the spices (if you like pumpkin pie spices, which I do, you will like these) and not the carrots . Next time, I will process the dates with all the wet ingredients except the carrots, to see if I can get some carrot flavor. I would love to try a more cake-like version, too. Keep up the good work, Susan!

    Reply

  46. I made these today and they’re delicious. No added fat or sugar? Wow! Keep posting great ideas like this.

    Reply

  47. Made this today to share at a potluck in Paris, France and everybody loved it (and I was the only vegan !). Thank you 🙂

    Reply

    • I made the bars today. They were good. I might use less dates next time as I found them a bit sweet. Also, I think I may not have baked them long enough as they were soft/too moist on the bottom. I wrapped individual bars in parchment and put them in a ziploc bag for future, delicious consumption.

      Reply

  50. These look absolutely amazing! I just bought a bag of carrots and started scouring the internet for something I could actually eat (intolerant to: gluten, soy, nuts, bananas, pineapple, eggs, dairy) so it looks like I hit the jackpot! I have a ton of prunes on hand and no dates. Do you think that would sub well… maybe if I soaked them first?

    Reply

  53. I just made these today, they didn’t last long, everyone loved them! However I was unable to evenly mix the dates into the carrots and apple sauce, so I tossed it all back in the food processor which meant no carrot bits but a more cake like consistency. I also had no clove or allspice and it still was good! Next time I’m going to double the recipe. Also thinking of a variation with zucchini since it’s that time of year! Maybe 1/2 carrot and 1/2 zucchini.

    Reply

  55. Do you think I could substitute agave for the dates? I don’t have any dates in my kitchen, but I have all the other ingredients.

    These look great! I just got a whole bunch of carrots from my CSA and this is a perfect way to use them (I hate carrots, but love carrot cake for some reason. Go figure.)

    Reply

      • I finally just bought the dates and made these… and they are delicious! I had to make my own applesauce because I didn’t have any on hand. I would also wonder how these would be using apple butter or crushed pineapple instead of applesauce.

        Also now I have a big box of dates to try other recipes with!

        Reply

  57. Oh my they are goooood!

    I am going to try this using bean flour mixed with oatmeal processed into an oat flour and see how they turn out. Might add dried all natural cranberries too.

    Also I keep thinking how I could add pumpkin to this recipe???

    Yummy

    Reply

  59. Would the same ounces of Del Noor dates be OK. I have heard they are not as sweet. Should I bump up the amount or look for the Medjool?

    Reply

    • Are they smaller than medjool? If so, I would just use a few more of them so that they equal the same number of ounces. But I would try to keep the ounces the same.

      Reply

  61. These bars sound like perfect post-run recovery bars to me – thanks for the recipe! Love your recipes 🙂

    Reply

  62. I just made these and they turned out pretty well- I used GF flour (Bob’s Red Mill). I wouldn’t say they turned into “bars” though- more like a cake. Why do you think it didn’t firm up? Also, they were WAY too sweet. Do you think I could just cut the amount of dates in 1/2 or would that ruin the recipe and keep the batter from sticking together? Thanks!

    Reply

  64. I am new to vegan cooking and my attempt at these bars and vegan pumpkin bread yesterday went horribly wrong. The bars just did not cook! I followed he recipe to the letter except I made my own apple sauce by blitzing softened (lightly cooked) apples with a touch of water. Is this where I am going wrong? Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks

    Reply

    • I’m so sorry! I suspect that lightly cooked apples retain a lot more moisture than bottled apple sauce, so that may have caused the bars to have too much liquid. I hate to hear of all your time and ingredients wasted.

      Reply

  65. I made a batch of these today, and they were wonderful — very nice and moist, and the perfect balance of spicy and sweet. I will definitely make these again. Thanks for the great recipe!

    Reply

  66. I love carrot cake and I would like to try making these. I have an 8×8 pan, but it’s not glass. Is that ok, or does it have to be a glass pan?

    Reply

  67. Is there a way of cutting down the sugar?? Dates are so high in sugar, and why does fat free have to mean high in sugar?

    Reply

  68. Oh, yumm! I hope these’ll work alright with brown rice flour. And for just that purpose I like the size that you made them. Slim, but not too thin. They’ll just be the perfect trail snack, so thank you!

    Reply

  70. Hi Susan! I’ve made this recipe once before and I love it! I’m thinking of multiplying it by 1.5 to make a slightly larger quantity. Do you think it’d be ok to do that and bake it in a 9×9 square pan? How long do you think I’d need to bake it in that case? Or do you have any other recommendations for multiplying the recipe?

    Thanks!

    Reply

  71. Made these this morning, and they are very tasty! I omitted the walnuts, but I think next time I will add them in for a bit of texture. I think also next time I will cut back on some of the spices, as I found them almost a bit too spice-y. But overall very good, and very easy!

    Reply

  72. Hi Susan! I LOVE your recipes and look forward to a cookbook 🙂 In the past I have been able to just hit “print” and print out the recipes…now I have to save them first and go thru several hoops before printing. Is there a way to simply print them? Thanks!

    Reply

  73. These look delicious! Do you think they’d work with blanched almond flour instead of brown rice flour? I need them to be GF. Thanks!

    Reply

  74. Very flavorful. I brought these to a party where I was the only vegan and two people asked me for the recipe. I sent them the link for this page. Thank you for sharing your recipes!

    Reply

  75. I am going to try this today but using carrot juicer pulp, arrowroot flour and honey instead of dates. I hope it turns out as good as these look!

    Reply

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