Carrot Cake (made with carrot juice pulp)

FIRST PUBLISHED 04/03/21; LAST UPDATED 08/05/24

Carrot cake can be quite the hot topic.

From whether it’s good or not, to what you put in it, people have a lot of opinions surrounding the subject. But I, for one, love it. In fact, I feel like it’s often a very underrated and overlooked cake. And I have no idea why. I mean, YOU GUYS. It’s literally vegetables parading as cake. Like I’m pretty sure it’s the only way you can get a serving of veggies and still eat your cake, too. I mean, I’m not a nutritionist or anything so, you know, don’t quote me on that, but the proof is pretty much written in the recipe.

See, it’s packed with carrots (a few cups to be exact) which means it’s basically a vegetable which also means, therefore, that it’s basically a health food. I mean, how can you not love this cake??

And don’t even get me started on the whole debate of adding pineapple and coconut (Both for me please!) as well as nuts (Also, yes!) and raisins (hard pass). If my Instagram DM’s are any indication, everyone is extremely, extremely opinionated and specific when it comes to their carrot cake. And basically everyone likes something different.

Good news is that this carrot cake is pretty flexible. You can easily eliminate the spices you don’t care for (or don’t have), and you can skip the nuts and/or the coconut. The pineapple and ginger, however, are a bit more of a challenge as this cake is actually made with the pulp leftover from my favorite carrot juice, which, you guessed it, has pineapple and ginger in it. But if you really, really just can’t do the pineapple (or ginger), be sure to check the notes on what to do.

Also, let’s just take a second for that juice pulp thing. Because I don’t know about you, but the one thing I hate about juicing is the excess of waste that it produces. Sure, I throw them in the compost, but it still always seems like such a shame. So, I try to incorporate the leftover pulp into recipes whenever I can. And the pulp from this juice is always just begging to be made into a carrot cake, which is, obviously, exactly what I decided to do here. I mean, make a juice so I can make cake? Sure, twist my arm. You don’t need to ask me twice. You know I’m all about that cake, er I mean juice, life! Ha!

And tbh, this cake is so good, you would never even know that it’s sustainable aka made with leftover juice pulp. And also refined-sugar free (when made with the coconut sugar). And that the frosting is made with vegan cream cheese (although tbh I find the best dreamiest, fluffiest, creamiest cream cheese frosting to be made with regular cream cheese but vegan butter…I know, just trust me on this one). It’s truly so moist, not too sweet and packed with the perfect amount of flavors. It’s totally worth juicing for, and also, if we’re being honest, ditching all your other carrot cake recipes for. It’s that good!

I mean, cheers to juicing, am I right?!

P.S. YOU CAN ALSO WATCH ME MAKE THIS CAKE OVER ON INSTAGRAM!

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