How to make Carrot Cake with Walnuts

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Looking for a delicious and moist carrot cake recipe? Look no further! Today I bring the best carrot cake with walnuts recipe you will ever try! It is a simple and full of flavor carrot cake gently spiced with cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger.

This cake is baked in a loaf like banana bread, so it takes a little bit more time to bake, but the result is totally worth the waiting!

It is perfect for serving at a spring brunch, breakfast, or snack. It is extra yummy if you decide to spread some nut butter, such as peanut butter or almond butter when the slice of cake is slightly warm.

This is a simple cake, so it has no frosting or chocolate layers, but feel free to add some and make it even better!

You have to give it a try!

Carrot Cake with Walnuts Recipe Ingredients

What is carrot cake made of? The basic ingredients are fresh carrots and the classic spices cinnamon and ginger.

Many people choose to add some type of nuts in it to give it a little bit of texture, but you will find a great number of variations out there: with frosting, without frosting, with chocolate, without chocolate, with pecans, walnuts, no nuts at all, and so on.

Choose one recipe that contains ingredients that you like the most and adapt to your taste if needed.

A little bit about the ingredients I used for this recipe and some tips. The exact measurements are described in the recipe form below.

Carrots: I used 2 medium size carrots. First I peeled the carrots and then I grated them. To shred them, I chose the large holes of the box grater, which helps with retaining some texture and you can still see the beautiful orange color of the carrots.

It should give you about 2 cups of loosely packed grated carrot. This amount of carrots you can adjust to your taste, but if you want to reduce the amount, try to not add less than 1 cup of loosely packed grated carrot.

Rolled oats: This cake is slightly healthier than the classic one because it has less all-purpose flour. Oat is a nutritional ingredient that is high in fiber content and does not affect the taste of the cake, I promise! For this recipe, you need to let the oats rest a bit with the milk, before adding the other ingredients.

Wheat flour: It does contain a bit of wheat flour/all-purpose flour, but it is less than the classic recipes, as I mentioned above. The wheat flour helps with building the structure of the cake.

Milk: I used lactose-free milk for this recipe, but you can use the one with lactose or any plant-based milk you prefer, it will work.

Coconut oil: This ingredient will help the cake to be moist and you don’t need a big amount, only 2 tablespoons of melted coconut oil will do the trick.

Sugar: You don’t need a lot of sugar for this recipe and if you prefer you can use a different type of sugar, such as coconut sugar which will work as well.

Maple syrup: Only 2 tablespoons helps with the color and, of course, with taste by making it sweeter. Maple syrup is a better option than sugar because it is less processed, which means it contains more nutrients.

Eggs: I used 2 big eggs for this recipe, you don’t need more than that.

Vanilla extract: It adds an extra layer of flavor and goes perfectly well with the spices.

Spices: You can choose your favorite spices to add to this cake. I used cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom. I saw some recipes using nutmeg and I think it can also be a really good option for this recipe.

Walnuts: Perfect for adding some texture and crunchiness, besides tasting really good. You can use another type of nut in this recipe such as pecan or macadamia, both would be great options. If you don’t like or can’t eat nuts, skip this ingredient – the cake will still taste amazing!

Baking powder: We need just a little bit to have a nice fluffy cake.

How to make Carrot Cake with Walnuts

This is a very simple recipe and you can make it all in only one bowl.

I tried both methods: using only one bowl and using two different bowls, one for dry ingredients and one for liquid ingredients.

I think it is more practical to use only one bowl (fewer items to clean!), so that is why I wrote the instructions for one bowl. If you prefer to use 2 bowls instead, because you think it is more organized and easier, just go ahead. Using two bowls will work perfectly fine as well!

First, preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F and line a loaf pan with parchment paper. Combine the oats with the milk of your choice and let it sit for around 10 minutes.

Then, add the eggs, maple syrup, coconut oil, vanilla, and sugar and whisk well to combine all the ingredients. Add the grated carrots and whisk again until well combined.

If you like to have walnut pieces in the batter, also add the walnuts in this step and whisk again to have them well distributed along the batter. For the cake in the pictures, I only added the walnuts on top. I also baked with the walnuts distributed along the batter and both ways are really tasty!

After that, pour the batter into the loaf pan covered with parchment paper. Place it in the center of the oven and bake until the loaf is golden brown, with some cracks on top. This will take about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

So the cake is ready! But give it 10 minutes or so to cool down before cutting the slices, because otherwise, the cake will turn into crumbles (but still taste amazing!).

Taking a slice of this cake with a cup of coffee or tea is just the perfect combination!

I hope you give it a try and enjoy it!

You might want to check these other recipes:

• Delicious Fudgy Brownie with Walnuts and Chocolate Chips
• The Best Apple Pie with Marzipan
• Simple and Delicious Pear Cake