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If you love carrot cake, you’ll love this baked Paleo Carrot Bread! This gluten-free carrot cake bread is incredibly moist and full of spices, chopped walnuts, and golden raisins, made with all grain-free ingredients.
I love a good carrot cake recipe. But sometimes, I just don’t feel like making a whole big cake. Other times call for carrot cake muffins, but sometimes you just want a slice of good quick bread. Enter paleo carrot bread, a delicious quick bread that is reminiscent of carrot cake, but made without grains, refined sugars, or dairy. Still maintains all of the deliciousness, though!
Really, I wanted to call this Sunshine Bread. My sister actually came up with the idea for a carrot turmeric bread when she was helping me recipe brainstorm over the holidays. I wrote “sunshine bread!” with the description, and the idea has been stuck in my head ever since.
I was predicting it would turn out to be a beautiful golden color thanks to the turmeric, grated carrots, and golden raisins. However, the coconut sugar derailed my color plans and the bread turned a more rusty orange color. Not as “sunshine-y” as I had envisioned, and the name didn’t fit as well as I had planned.
Regardless, though Google is calling it “Paleo Carrot Bread,” it will forever be referred to in my head as sunshine bread, because doesn’t it just make you smile? ☀️
Okay, enough talking about the name. Let’s talk instead about why I’m obsessed with it. It’s SO super moist. In fact, the few times I made it, it was so moist that the middle was sinking. It didn’t look perfect but still tasted amazing. I ate the whole thing, as I did repeatedly as I tested this recipe and…I finally GOT IT!
What’s this gluten-free carrot bread like?
This paleo, grain-free carrot bread is sweet, but not too sweet. It’s well-spiced, thanks to a combo of cinnamon, nutmeg, and turmeric, without being overwhelming. It’s moist and soft without being too wet. I love texture in my quick bread, so I added crunch with walnuts and bursts of chewy sweetness with raisins. In the recipe though, I listed them as optional. I know some folks can’t stand the thought of nuts or raisins in their baked goods.
The combination of flours is important here. We only add one teaspoon of coconut flour, but it really does help absorb some of that excess moisture that the carrots give off as the bread bakes. You may skip it if you must, but your bread may sink a bit in the middle, as mine did initially.
The turmeric may seem like an unexpected addition, but it adds a wonderful slightly earthy flavor. It combines fabulously with the other spices, and also adds some color! Time to make some sunshine bread ☀️ Happy baking!
Paleo Carrot Bread
Ingredients
- ⅔ cup coconut sugar
- ⅓ cup coconut oil, melted
- 2 tablespoons almond butter
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup blanched almond flour
- ¼ cup tapioca flour
- 1 teaspoon coconut flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 tablespoon turmeric
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 cup grated carrots
- ½ cup chopped walnuts, optional
- ⅓ cup golden raisins, optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9×5 loaf pan with coconut oil.
- Mix together the coconut sugar, melted coconut oil, and almond butter in a large bowl. Add the eggs one at a time, incorporating the first completely before adding the second. In another bowl, whisk together almond flour, tapioca flour, coconut flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, turmeric, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture and combine. Add carrots, walnuts, and golden raisins and stir them in gently.
- Pour into prepared pan and bake until cooked through about 40 to 50 minutes. A knife or toothpick should come out clean when inserted into the center of the bread. Cool completely before slicing and serving.
This sunshine bread is brightening up my cold winter! Love the idea of turmeric + carrot!
Oh my goodness, this looks so good Rachel! I love carrot cake and breads, but they’re usually not very healthy. I love that this one is healthier and looks just as decadent!
Uhhhh YUM! Its like carrot cake in loaf form! I hear ya with the SEO probs! One too many times I had to change the unique names of my recipe so they could rank higher in google lol!
Have just made this recipe, (no ginger in the one I downloaded?)
The mixture is very dry and solid? I am not confident that it is going to work although I have followed it to the letter.
Hope I am proved wrong, no one else seems to have actually made it.
Hi Penny. No, the recipe doesn’t call for ginger, though you could certainly add a bit of powdered ginger if you want that flavor. Do you mean the batter is dry and solid? That definitely doesn’t seem right – it should be a thicker batter going into the oven. Did you change anything in the recipe? Let me know how it turns out, and if it doesn’t I can help troubleshoot what went wrong.
Well I cooked it and I have to say it tastes nice but the texture is all wrong, rather heavy and indigestible. The “batter was so solid I had to actually push it in to the loaf tin so it did not naturally level out and rise like I would expect,
I followed the recipe to the letter even went out of my way to source all the correct ingredients. I used Sukrin almond flour which is a good brand and I used large free range eggs but it was just too dry. I was very careful about measuring as we don’t tend to use cups in the UK , I do have proper cup measures though, so I am confident I did not mis measure anything. It is fundamentally a nice recipe so I would like to get to the bottom of what went wrong?
Just a thought! I used almond flour not ground almonds? is it aspects of a common language?
Ok, so not to be defeated I tried again with half the mixture. I used ground almonds (almond meal?) and although not so solid it was still not a thick batter! I added another egg and a little water and it seems to have come out much better. Would still be interested to know what went wrong before?
Hi Penny. What kinds of almonds did you use before? I always use blanched almond flour – Honeyville and Anthony’s are my favorite brands, and sometimes if the almonds aren’t fine enough it can mess with the texture. It does seems odd that it would come out so much thicker than mine! If you make it again, I would skip the coconut flour too. I added incorporated into the recipe because without it, my bread was too moist. Unfortunately, it’s hard for me to tell what went wrong without being in the kitchen with you and seeing exactly which ingredients you use. Sorry I can’t be more helpful!
I used Sukrin almond flour which is very fine, in fact I thought that was part of the problem as it just sucked up what little moisture there was. The ground almonds worked better the second time but it was still not a thick batter more solid than that. I don’t think omitting the coconut flour would make sufficient difference. I am in the UK so don’t know the brands you mention but I thought Sukrin was a US brand and we get some Bob’s Red Mill products. Maybe our organic carrots have less moisture in them?
Oh interesting, I’ve never heard of Sukrin almond flour! I just looked it up though, and that sounds like at least part of the problem. Sukrin almond flour has 80% of the fat pressed out of it and while I haven’t tried it so I don’t know exactly what difference that would make, I would presume it would suck up more moisture to compensate for the missing fat, like you’re experiencing. I would stick with the more traditional almond meal. It’s possible there’s a difference with carrots, but I don’t think that would make a huge difference. You could try increasing the oil by a tablespoon or two to add some extra moisture as well.
Yes my second batch was much better with almond meal. I added a little water and an extra egg. It seems quite oily already so probably would not go that route. Thanks for your help, I enjoy the blog.
Penny
great loaf . it came out amazing