Every spring, I come down with a fierce craving for carrot cake. It’s the way of Mother Nature. The frost melts. The tulips bloom. The baby animals are born. I am seized by an emergency need for carrot cake. At the same time, however, I can’t in good conscience say that keeping an entire carrot cake around for a household of three, even this Healthy Carrot Cake recipe, is a particularly prudent idea. It becomes even less prudent when you consider that one member of said household is a crazy man who doesn’t like carrot cake (I KNOW!) and the other is a 25-pound beagle. And the third household member? Well, she wants carrot cake, but she doesn’t want to wait the 4+ hours she’d need to bake, cool, and frost the cake, plus wash the dishes. As it turns out, the best way to have your carrot cake and eat it too isn’t a cake at all. It’s Carrot Cookies!
Carrot Cookies—Wholesome AND Delicious!
These quick and easy Carrot Cookies are made entirely of wholesome ingredients. The base is oat flour, so they are gluten free (you can find oat flour in many grocery stores, online here, or simply make your own in the food processor—directions below). Instead of butter, these oatmeal Carrot Cookies use coconut oil, which gives them a soft yet satisfying texture. They’re naturally sweetened with applesauce and honey, and if you’d like to make them vegan carrot cookies, you can use maple syrup instead.
I crave my carrot cake fully loaded with yummy mix-ins, and you’ll find that preference reflected in this carrot cookie recipe. In addition to a whopping 1 1/2 cups of freshly grated carrots (Carrot Cookies healthy enough for breakfast? I say yes!), I added chopped walnuts, raisins, and warm, signature carrot cake spices like cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. I know some of these mix-ins (and by “some” I mean “raisins”) are cause for division in the carrot dessert kingdom, so if they aren’t your thing, you can simply omit them. In an effort to further our Carrot-Cookies-for-Breakfast cause, I also added a few tablespoons of flaxseed for an extra nutritional boost. If you’d like to keep this recipe as virtuous as possible, these chewy Carrot Cookies are wonderful just as they are, completely unadorned.
That said…I couldn’t resist the urge to drizzle my Carrot Cookies with orange icing, because that’s how my grandma topped her carrot cookies when I was growing up (you can find her recipe called Orange Cookies on my site). For the carrot cake traditionalists, you can also top these Carrot Cookies with cream cheese frosting. (Need a recipe? Check out the cream cheese frosting on top of this Pumpkin Sheet Cake.)
How to Store and Freeze
To Store. Store leftover cookies in an airtight container lined with a paper towel at room temperature for 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. To Freeze. If freezing the cookies, I recommend waiting to frost them or freezing the frosting separately. If your cookies are already frosted, to freeze, arrange them in a single layer on a baking sheet, place the baking sheet in the freezer until the cookies harden, then transfer the cookies to an airtight container or ziptop bag. Freeze for up to 3 months.
