Oatmeal Carrot Cake Bread

This Oatmeal Carrot Cake Bread will be a delicious addition to your spring brunch or dessert table! Loaded with carrots, pineapple and raisins, then topped off with cream cheese frosting. A must make when you get a craving for carrot cake!  

This recipe and photos have been updated since the original post on 2/26/2016

Easter is just around the corner and whether you serve this Oatmeal Carrot Cake Bread with breakfast or as dessert I know you’ll love it! It’s a hearty, sweet, quick bread made with oats, whole wheat flour and Greek yogurt for extra moisture.

What Do I Need to Make the Bread?

• Old fashioned rolled oats
• Unsweetened almond milk, or milk of choice
• Whole wheat flour and all purpose flour
• Baking powder and baking soda
• Ground cinnamon, ginger and allspice
• Canned crushed pineapple
• Maple syrup
•  Olive oil or melted coconut oil
• Plain Greek yogurt
• Eggs
• Vanilla extract
• Carrots
• Raisins
• Pecans or walnuts (optional)
• Low fat or full fat cream cheese
• Powdered sugar

As you can see by the list of ingredients, this bread is jam packed with everything you’d find in traditional carrot cake. The canned pineapple is an ingredient I’ve occasionally seen used in the cake and personally I like it. The addition of it reminds me of a Hummingbird Cake.

The original recipe for this Oatmeal Carrot Cake Bread is one that I found in my grandma’s recipe collection. I made some adjustments to it such as replacing some of the all purpose flour with whole wheat flour, adding Greek yogurt and using maple syrup to sweeten it versus sugar.

Making the bread doesn’t require any special equipment. You’ll mix all of the wet ingredients in one bowl and the dry in another. The wet gets stirred into the dry with a rubber spatula and then the raisins and pecans are stirred in. The key with any quick bread is to not over-mix it. Over mixing will result in a tough bread.

Ingredient Substitutions

• All purpose flour may be omitted and replaced with whole wheat flour. Note that this will yield a denser loaf of bread.  
• White whole wheat flour can be used in place of regular whole wheat flour. 
• Raisins may be omitted if you don’t like them or replaced with another type of dried fruit such as dried cranberries. 
• Rolled oats can be substituted with quick oats.
• Maple syrup can be substituted with coconut sugar or brown sugar. You will likely need to use a little more (2-4 tablespoons) as maple syrup is sweeter.

Does the Bread Need the Frosting?

The final element to this hearty quick bread is the cream cheese frosting. Frosting is always optional, but I highly recommend it with this bread. The bread itself isn’t overly sweet, don’t go into it thinking it will taste like a piece of cake. By topping it with cream cheese frosting you add that extra bit of sweetness without overdoing it. Plus carrot cake just isn’t carrot cake without cream cheese frosting!

More Cake Recipes

Lemon Yogurt Cake

Cranberry Orange Yogurt Cake

Cinnamon Peach Yogurt Cake

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Oatmeal Carrot Cake Bread

Yield: 14 slices

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

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Ingredients

Bread

• 1 cup rolled oats or quick oats
• 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk or milk of choice
• 1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 8 ounce can crushed pineapple, undrained
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, melted coconut oil or melted butter
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1/3 cup plain non-fat Greek yogurt, 2% or whole may also be used
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups shredded carrots
• 1/3 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup chopped toasted pecans (optional)
• 4 ounces low fat cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
• Pinch of salt
• 1/3 cup powdered sugar

Instructions

Oatmeal Carrot Cake Bread

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Spray a 9x5 loaf pan with cooking spray, line the bottom with parchment paper, then spray the top of the parchment paper with cooking spray.
2. In a medium sized bowl combine the oats and milk and let them soak while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
3. In a large bowl whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices.
4. Add the crushed pineapple, maple syrup, Greek yogurt, eggs, vanilla and shredded carrots to the oat mixture and whisk together until combined. Pour the wet ingredients in with the dry and fold together until just combined with a rubber spatula. Stir in the raisins and pecans.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool the bread in the pan for 10 minutes before inverting it onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
6. In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment or with a hand held mixer, beat together the cream cheese, cinnamon, vanilla and pinch of salt until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add in the powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Spread the frosting over the top of the completely cooled bread and garnish with toasted chopped pecans if desired.

Notes

If you don't care for raisins in carrot cake toasted pecans or toasted unsweetened coconut are great substitutions.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 12 Serving Size: 1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 230Total Fat: 5gSaturated Fat: 2gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 36mgSodium: 252mgCarbohydrates: 43gFiber: 5gSugar: 20gProtein: 7g