Name: Oatmeal Carrot Cake Bread
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 1 h 15 min
Yield: 14 slices
Ingredients: 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

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