Tropical Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting – Gluten Free

A decadent and delicious layered carrot cake with pineapple, coconut, and pecans for a tropical twist, with a thick classic cream cheese frosting. Made gluten-free, using almond flour and oats, this cake is lower in sugar than traditional carrot cake and made with only real food wholesome ingredients, but piled high with delicious decadence. 

More tasty treats with carrots:
No Bake Carrot Cake Bites

More tasty almond flour recipes:
The BEST Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies, Chocolate Chip Banana Bread, Strawberry Cake with Coconut Whipped Cream, Chewy Ginger Molasses Cookies, Cherry Rhubarb Crumble

I have been on a baking TEAR lately! Hanging in the kitchen with a good audiobook and a great idea for a new baked good recipe is my current formula for bliss.

Speaking of bliss, allow me to introduce you to the most decadent, delicious, and potentially the best cake I’ve ever made.

Tropical Carrot Cake – that just happens to be gluten-free but don’t hold that against the cake.

Here is what you can look forward to:

• A moist (sorry it’s the best describer) light and fluffy crumb, i.e. PERFECT CAKE TEXTURE
• Spices, coconut, pineapple, nuts – the perfect tropical twist!
• Thick layers of tangy cream cheese frosting

Let’s just say this is THE carrot cake that you need in your life.

Here’s the BEST part. 

Simple wholesome ingredients. You know I LOVE that in a baked good! 

This recipe even got the stamp of approval from my mom. This is no small feat, as she is the world’s best baker and has been known to say about healthier baked goods (gluten-free included) “why bother”. 

Let’s get baking!

INGREDIENTS

• Almond Flour – A staple ingredient in my baking pantry. Almond flour is made with ground almonds so maintain the same health perks of almonds; good quality healthy fat, protein, fiber, and vitamin E.
• Rolled Oats or Oat Flour – I make my own oat flour by grinding rolled oats in a blender, but you can absolutely use oat flour instead. Be sure to look for certified gluten-free oats if you are gluten-free.
• Eggs – 4 large eggs (ideally pasture-raised organic eggs)
• Avocado Oil or coconut oil – I personally don’t love the flavor of coconut oil in this cake. Avocado oil far outperformed coconut oil in the taste test. But if you only have coconut oil around it absolutely still works.
• Shredded carrots, coconut, pecans, and crushed pineapple – all the good things! You can sub any nut that you like, I used canned crushed pineapple (without added sugar) but you can also pulse fresh pineapple in a food processor.
• Coconut Palm Sugar – brown sugar also works
• Cream cheese and powdered sugar – for the cream cheese frosting or if you are dairy-free you can substitute whipped coconut cream.

TOOLS

• Mixing bowls
• Electric mixer or standing mixer
• 8″ round cake pans – you will need two
• Spatula

MAKE AHEAD AND STORAGE

• To Make Ahead: cake layers can be made one day in advance, wrapped in plastic and stored at room temperature. The frosting can be made in advance and stored in the refrigerator.
• To Store: Cover the cake and store in the refrigerator for up to 7 days, allow the cake to come to room temperature before serving.
• To Freeze: Cut your cake into slices and freeze each individually in airtight freezer-safe storage for up to 2 months. Remove and thaw in the refrigerator. (I WISH I did this with a few of my test batches!)

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

I wanted a classic (ish) thick cream cheese frosting for this cake, with one tweak. I don’t like super sweet frosting. I found cream cheese frosting recipes with 3 cups of powdered sugar THREE CUPS! 

Talk about a sugar bomb! 

I used 3/4 of a cup, if this produces too tangy of a frosting for your taste you can easily add more.

If you are vegan or not into powdered sugar and cream cheese try my coconut whipped cream frosting instead.

MY NUTRITION TIPS

How to Make Baked Goods a Little Healthier

When developing new baked good recipes I ask myself three key questions:

• Can I reduce the amount of sugar/ sweetener? Does this recipe really need to be this sweet?
• What is the primary flour used, is it possible to upgrade to whole grain or whole food flour rather than using white flour?
• Am I using a good amount of high-quality fat and or protein (i.e. eggs)?

I will not answer yes to ALL three questions for ALL new recipes, and there is absolutely the time and place for old school white flour, butter, sugar recipes (HELLO Christmas cookies!!). 

But the big truth is that I LOVE my recipes for baked goods and time and time again I’ve found that I prefer them to white flour recipes… white flour actually has no flavor!

My almond flour chocolate chip cookies, for instance, have had their own mini-viral moment over the last 2 months, with 100’s of people writing in to tell me that they are in fact THE BEST chocolate chip cookies ever! 

So if you are looking to upgrade your baking, I recommend beginning by reducing the sugar in a recipe, or swapping out white sugar for maple syrup, honey, or coconut palm sugar AND reducing the amount by at least 25% and see what you think!

A NOTE ON CALORIES:

Baked goods are still baked goods, even when they are made with almond flour! This is not a “low-calorie” recipe, but that is not my goal when upgrading my baked good recipes (see above).

DIETARY MODIFICATIONS

This recipe is gluten-free.

• Paleo – Technically oats are not paleo-friendly so you would need to replace the oats with a paleo-approved flour like coconut flour or more almond flour. I have not tested this version of the recipe so I have no idea if it would work.
• Vegan – Replace the eggs with flax eggs and the cream cheese frosting with coconut whipped cream.

For more tasty dishes like this one, check out my Spring recipes, Easter brunch recipes and Mother’s Day Brunch recipes roundups!

I hope you love this Tropical Carrot Cake Recipe! If you make it sure to tag me @abrapappa on Instagram so I can share your photo!