Carrot Cake Pancakes
Decadent, fluffy carrot cake pancakes that happen to be easy to make and made with 100% whole wheat flour. Bet you can't tell!
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on October 22, 2024
How do I love pancakes? Let me count the ways. I love pancakes, first and foremost, because they give me an excuse to eat cakes for breakfast. Or dinner. Secondly, nothing makes me giddy like the sight of a plate of pancakes, piled high. Leisurely mornings are celebration-worthy occurrences, are they not? They deserve pancakes. Lastly, I love fluffy, whole wheat pancakes like these because they hold me over until lunchtime, unlike donuts or pastries. Hold the pastries, pass the pancakes.
I haven’t been able to get these carrot cake pancakes off my mind since I saw them in the Joy the Baker Cookbook. I really love Joy the Baker. Why? Because one day she posts cheesecake, and the next, kale and quinoa cakes. She bakes birthday cakes for her cat, Jules, and then unabashedly tells the world about it. Even Cookie doesn’t get birthday cake. Plus, her hilarious podcasts keep me company while I work at home. I pretty much feel like we’re friends, so when she published her first cookbook, I had to have it immediately. It is, as the cover says, a celebration of butter and sugar, but these pancakes stood out because they’re low in both of those ingredients and still incredible.
Joy’s recipe was not my first attempt at making carrot cake pancakes, but her recipe turned out perfectly whereas the first recipe left me with fat, chewy pancakes. In my first attempt, I used my food processor to grate the carrots but it didn’t grate the carrots finely enough. The pancakes ended up sort of dense and almost crunchy. It makes sense if you think about it, because the carrots in actual carrot cake have over 30 minutes to break down in the oven but pancakes are cooked for less than 5 minutes.
The carrot conundrum was the one thing keeping me from making these pancakes, but lo and behold, Deb of Smitten Kitchen posted Joy’s carrot cake pancakes along with her carrot grating advice. Deb suggested grating the carrots by hand with a fine grater instead of using the food processor, which didn’t quite satisfy me but got me thinking about other potential solutions. (Hand grating requires far more energy than I possess before breakfast.) I had a few ideas on how to bypass the problem, and fortunately my first attempt using the easiest method worked great. I used my food processor’s grating blade to grate carrots as usual, and then I swapped in the all-purpose blade and pulsed the carrots a few times. Voila! Finely grated carrots made with minimal effort.
Considering that two of my favorite food bloggers love these pancakes, I was not surprised to find that I do, too. They are decadent and delicious, while being full of carrots and in my version, whole grains as well. What’s not to love? I suggest you make them this weekend.
Carrot Cake Pancakes
Decadent and delicious carrot cake pancakes made with whole wheat flour. Recipe yields 11 to 12 medium pancakes.
Ingredients
Pancakes
- 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour or whole wheat flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons packed Muscovado sugar or brown sugar
- 1 cup buttermilk*
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups finely grated carrots (about 6 big or 8 smallish carrots)**
- Butter, for griddle
Maple cream cheese topping
- 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 2 tablespoons real maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons milk (more or less depending on desired consistency)
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- Dash of ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit so you can keep the pancakes warm before serving. Spoon the cream cheese into a bowl and leave it out at room temperature to soften.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger.
- In a smaller bowl, whisk together the egg, Muscovado/brown sugar, buttermilk and vanilla.
- Stir in the carrots, then dump the wet mixture into the dry mixture all at once. Stir just until incorporated. Let the mixture rest for 5 minutes while you make the cream cheese topping and preheat your griddle/skillet.
- Whisk the cream cheese in a small bowl until it is uniformly soft and pliable, with no lumps. If your cream cheese is not soft enough yet to do this, try zapping it in the microwave for just a few seconds at a time. Whisk in the maple syrup, milk, vanilla and cinnamon. Feel free to sweeten with more syrup or further thin it out further with more milk. Set aside.
- Over medium heat, melt a big pat of butter in a cast-iron skillet or griddle. Pour a scant ¼ cup batter into the hot pan, using the measuring cup to pat the batter down and out a bit. Cook, flipping once, until the pancakes are golden on both sides.
- Place pancakes on an ovenproof plate and keep in the oven while you cook the remaining pancakes, adding more butter to the pan as needed. Top with maple cream cheese and serve with extra maple syrup on the side, in case someone wants to sweeten it up further.
Notes
- Adapted from the Joy the Baker Cookbook.
- These pancakes freeze well!
- *Make your own buttermilk by combining 1 cup milk with 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Let it sit for 5 minutes then proceed as directed.
- **If you have a food processor with a grating attachment, grate the carrots using the grating attachment. Then replace the grating attachment with your regular multipurpose blade. Pulse the carrots up to 10 times, until they are finely grated finely but not mush (see photo above).
- Pancakes cooked in cast iron skillets taste the best, just saying. Get yourself one!
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
This recipe was absolutely delicious! The whole family enjoyed these pancakes. We will definitely be making again. Thank you for posting, we always love your recipes.
Let me just preface this by saying, “I hate carrot cake! Yuck.” But LOVE these pancakes. My toddler and super picky preschooler do too. Made from homegrown carrots and topped with toasted walnuts and bananas for the kids. Delicious
OH MY GRAVY! (or should I say pancake?) These are SO delicious! I was craving some carrot cake pancakes, so I did an online search and found this recipe. Needless to say I was blown away! The best part is I felt like I was indulging in a decadent treat, but it was still really healthy! I subbed two egg whites for the egg, skim milk and lemon juice for the buttermilk, and reduced the amount of sugar (only slightly), and the pancakes were STILL incredible. I’ll be visiting cookie and kate more often. Thanks for the fabulous recipe! =)
P.S. I couldn’t rate the recipe for some reason, but it would easily get five stars in my book!
Hooray! Thanks, Miranda.
Love any recipe that my 3 yr old will eat that helps us get veggies in at breakfast. Adapted this to combine wet ingredients in blender – including carrots – and it worked well and saved a step or two.
Thanks!
Hi Kate,
Disappointed my Gest Omlettes local restaurant stopped making carrot cake pancakes unless enough people complain. So sad. When I go there that’s what I’d order. Looked on line for a recipe and found yours. Can’t wait to try! Do you know the approximate calorie count?
Hi Kathy, I’m glad you found my recipe! No, I’m sorry, I don’t offer calorie counts (yet, I’m working on a solution).
I made this twice! They were amazing. I made cardamom cream cheese as topping. Whoaaa soooooo good!
I made these pancakes this morning. They turned out great! I halved the recipe, and used the milk + lemon juice buttermilk substitute. I also used commercial egg replacer. I appreciate that this recipe does not call for raisins too!
So glad those substitutes worked for you, Christina!
Excellent. I reduced carrots and added unsweetened shredded coconut, almond milk and a few fresh blue berries
Yum! Sounds delicious, Heidi.
Absolutely delicious carrot cake pancakes! Didn’t make the topping but dressed with a bit of maple syrup. Excellent flavor. Light and fully. Thank you!!
Perfect! Thanks, Judy.
I made this morning and followed the recommendation of grating and then pulsing in the food processor. It was still small pieces vs carrot mush. Seemed to work perfectly but the pancakes never set up. I reduced the size and cooked longer but it never cooked through. Any ideas? I made almond milk butter milk but that was the only alternation to the recipe.
Veronica, I’m sorry to hear that! I’m really not sure why the pancakes never set. Any chance you forgot to add the baking powder or soda? The leavener is responsible for most of the rise in pancakes.
Subbed in 1.5 tbsp ground flaxseed plus a couple more tablespoons homemade soy kefir (used in place of buttermilk) for the egg. Pancakes held together wonderfully in the pan and for flipping.
Also added some raisins and chopped pecans. Yum!
Thanks for sharing your recipes with the world.
Hi, Taylor! I’m so glad these pancakes worked for you and you enjoyed them. Thank you for your sweet words!
Very tasty and a perfect way to use up the rest of a bag of carrots sitting in the fridge. I subbed maple syrup for the brown sugar (because it was already out from another recipe) but cut the quantity to 1 Tbsp and found they were still plenty sweet. I didn’t make the maple cream cheese topping because I was trying to keep the calorie count down. I’m sure it would have been delicious, but not entirely necessary because the panckes are pretty darn perfect on their own.
They are great on their own! Thank you, Melissa for your review.
Can I substitute the whole flour for gluten free flour?
Hi Veronica, I haven’t tried it but it should work! It’s worked well for my other recipes in the past.
I made these for my kids so I substituted a mashed banana for the sugar and just ate them plain with no topping. They were so tasty! I even liked them and I normally don’t eat the healthy stuff I make for my kids, lol! I added more almond milk since the banana made it extra thick. Next time I will add a little more vinegar and baking soda to help them rise better due to my substitution. Thanks for the FANTASTIC recipe!
Hooray!! I’m happy you loved them.
Have you tried using this batter to make waffles? I made my pancakes using Deb’s recipe, with only 1/2 cup buttermilk and I ended up with dense, somehow undercooked pancakes. Not fluffy at all. :( So I was wondering whether they might work as waffles.
I haven’t! I’m sorry you didn’t have great results.
I am not a pancake lover. But these are delicious and we received a 25 pound bag of carrots in our CSA so I am looking for recipes (going to try more of your recipes this week). These pancakes are almost sinful. I felt like I was having a dessert without it being over sweet. My husband said it was an amazing breakfast and we could have them again for dinner sometime. Thank you for sharing this recipe.
I’m happy you love them! That’s for sure a lot of carrots and happy you found something new to do with them!
If you need ideas for next recipe – how about adapting this for waffles? Especially with Easter right around the corner?
Hi Marie, love that idea! Thank you. I’d probably start with my favorite oat waffles recipe and add the spices shown here, plus up to 2 cups shredded carrots. Let me know if you give that a try!
I made this recipe and it was amazing!!!!!! I didn’t make the topping, just added a tiny bit of maple syrup. SOOOOOOO GOOD. Also, I did melt 2 tablespoons of butter and mixed in the batter. SO WONDERFUL! Thank you so much! Joan
Hooray! You’re welcome, Joan. I’m glad you loved them so much.
These are our Easter Tradition !
You will be amazed at how yummy these pancakes are & almost guilt free
I love that! This is the perfect recipe for that.
I made these with half whole wheat flour and half all purpose flour. I grated carrots and then put them in the food processor. While cooking I put lid on skillet. They were delicious!
Made these for my two year old daughter today… she loved them!! And so did i
Thanks for the whole wheat version… it’s perfect!!
Love from India… Lakshmi
Oh my gosh, I tried these for lunch today as I have a boatload of garden carrots. What a delightful and delicious surprise. These pancakes surpassed my expectations! To save calories and sugar consumption I served with Good Culture cottage cheese and crisped prosciutto. This recipe is a winner.
Thank you for sharing, Ellen!
Followed recipe as is and it was PERFECT. I shredded my carrots thru my food processor shredding attachment, and also used the chopping attachment to make the carrots super fine.
Amazing flavour, texture and taste
Thanks so much for sharing this recipe
Thank you for sharing, Elle! I appreciate your review.
Hi! I thought the photo looked amazing, so I tried, but it turned out really hard to flip, and they weren’t as airy as I hoped. I think one problem is that I packed down the two cups, so there were more. Nest time, I’ll reduce the carrots.
Hi Hillary, I’m sorry these didn’t work out for you. Yes, the ratio of carrots will impact your end result and how you measure your flour.
I just added an extra egg and made them into waffles.
Fantastic! Crispy on the outside and moist and tender on the inside.
Thanks for helping me tame 15 lbs of (50 cent/lb!) carrots in my fridge.
You’ve changed the way we cook and eat in this household. No more comments of “where’s the meat?”