Whole Wheat Carrot Cake with Skinny Cream Cheese Frosting

If you’re looking for a slightly healthier option, this whole wheat carrot cake with Greek yogurt cream cheese is exactly what you’re looking for!  The cake and frosting are entirely sweetened with honey instead of refined sugar, the cake is made healthier with whole grains and the delicious cream cheese frosting is lightened up with Greek yogurt! 

Lets get down to business… This delicious cake!  Oh my goodness, this cake! I’m not one to get excited about carrot cake.  Heck, my hubby is definitely not one to get excited about carrot cake, but we all loved this cake, including him.  I was so excited when he said he enjoyed it(and went back for another piece).  You see he’s not usually a cake person.  And especially not one with vegetables in it.  This is a cake I’ll be making again and again at our house, it was a hit with everyone.

And that frosting!  Don’t even get me started.  I know it doesn’t look like a lot, but it was a decent amount of frosting.  It’s so flavorful you don’t need a whole lot of it, but if you really wanted to, I think you could scale the recipe to use a full 8oz of cream cheese and that would be good too.  And do you see I called it “skinny”?  That’s right, it’s made partially with Greek yogurt!  I know I’ve been a little obsessed with Greek yogurt lately.  It’s not a bad thing is it?

So, you’ll also notice I made this into cake “bars”.  You can bake this in a 9×13 pan or in 2 9″ cake pans and layer it(which I think would be awesome!).  It’s all up to you.  Make this cake however you like!

I did want to save this cake for when there were carrots at the Farmers Market because this cake will be incredible with fresh, sweet spring carrots.  I was out weeding my carrots last night and dreaming of making this cake with them.  Speaking of my garden, would you like to see garden updates here on Food Doodles?  I’ve literally been wanting to do something like that for years now.  I’m a little self conscious of my garden since I live in Canada so my garden is a little behind all the others I see, but I’d still like to share if you’re curious 🙂

Oh and speaking of sweetness, I think why we liked this cake so much is because it’s not too sweet.  It was the perfect sweetness for us.   The frosting isn’t too sweet either, it’s just sweet enough with a little bit of lemon juice to brighten it up.  Don’t even think about omitting that tiny bit of lemon juice, it makes a world of difference.

Give this cake a try and let me know what you think!  I hope you love it as much as we did!

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Whole Wheat Carrot Cake with Greek Yogurt Cream Cheese Frosting

Prep Time

15 mins

Cook Time

30 mins

Total Time

45 mins

 

Servings: 1 9x13 cake

Author: Heidi @ Food Doodles

Ingredients

For the Cake:

• 2 cups white whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 3/4 cup coconut oil melted
• 3/4 cup honey
• 4 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups grated carrots about 4 large
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 3/4 cup roughly chopped walnuts

For the Frosting:

• 6 oz cream cheese
• 1/2 cup plain greek yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup +1 tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• extra finely chopped walnuts for topping if desired

Instructions

For the Cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 9x13 pan by lightly buttering or spraying with oil.
2. In a bowl combine the whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. Mix and set aside.
3. In a large bowl stir together the melted coconut oil, honey, eggs, vanilla, grated carrots and applesauce until thoroughly combined.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir just until combined, folding in the walnuts at the last second. Pour the batter into the prepared 9x13 pan and spread out evenly. Place in the oven and bake for 28-32 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool completely before frosting.

For the Frosting:

1. In a food processor(or with hand beaters) beat the cream cheese until soft. Add the yogurt, vanilla, honey and lemon juice and beat until completely smooth. Pour into a container, cover and chill until ready to frost(frosting will thicken in the fridge after a couple hours).

Recipe Notes

This makes a lightly spiced cake. I prefer to taste the spices a little more and heap my spice measurements 🙂

For the frosting I used full fat cream cheese and non fat yogurt and highly recommend it. If you want to try low fat cream cheese you can, but I cant guarantee the results. Even using full fat cream cheese this recipe is lighter than most cream cheese frosting, so enjoy!