No Bake Carrot Cake Bars
These no bake carrot cake bars have a refreshingly bright and tangy flavor. They’re naturally sweetened with dried apricots and packed with fresh carrots, oats, and coconut.
Flavor Notes
sour patch kids | stone fruit | citrus
Pairing suggestions
dyeing easter eggs
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Why I love these bars
It’s hard to get more simple than a blender recipe, and that’s what makes these bars so great. You really don’t need to grate the carrots first, just toss them straight in.
Most granola bars lean on the chocolate/dark/warm side of the flavor spectrum, but these bars don’t. They’re bright and zingy! Much more like a skittle than an M&M. If you’re like me and you LOVE sour candy, then you’re going to swoon over these no bake carrot cake bars!
Whenever I can, I try to use whole foods – often it’ll be fruits – to sweeten my recipes. Dried apricots are doing all the heavy lifting here. They sweeten and help bind the dough together without the need for any added oils or emulsifiers.
Ingredients for No Bake Carrot Cake Bars
- Oat flour: the “base” of the recipe. Purchase pre-ground or grind your whole oats at home using a high speed blender.
- Oats: they add a bit of texture and “fluff” to the base. Be careful to make sure your oats are certified gluten free. Order my favorite oats here.
- Carrots: freshly grated carrots are the titular ingredient that cannot be missed!
- Coconut: we’re using unsweetened desiccated coconut flakes, but if you have a big sweet tooth, feel free to use sweetened flakes!
- Apricots: this recipe works best with the dried turkish variety, as opposed to california slab.
- Orange Juice: guys, you gotta use freshly squeezed here. No ifs ands or buts. The orange juice marries perfectly with the apricots to bring the “sour patch kids” flavor.
- Ground Flaxseed: totally optional because they aren’t acting as functional binding agents in this recipe. I threw them in for the omega-3s! See the substitutions section if you’re not a flax fan.
- Salt: whenever I use oats, I’ll add a pinch of salt to bring out their nutty, sweet undertones.
Optional:
- Turmeric: it makes the bars more “orange,” plus it’s packed with antioxidants!
- Frosting: I frosted my batch of no bake carrot cake bars with this high protein vegan frosting!
How to Make No Bake Carrot Cake Bars
If you don’t have oat flour, don’t worry! Start by making your own from either rolled or quick-cook oats. Just toss about 2 cups worth into a high-speed blender or food processor and pulse until you get it down to a fine, homogenous flour. It’ll only take a couple of minutes and viola! Homemade oat flour.
Apricot paste!? Yep, you read that right. Think of the texture of date paste, or the jammy filling of fig newtons, but with apricots instead! I’ve yet to find another recipe that uses apricots this way, and it was the inspiration for this recipe.
The first step is making the apricot paste with a high-power blender or food processor. I find that sulfured apricots are a bit more on the dry side. If you’re using sulfured apricots you might need to add in a bit more water to get things going.
Be sure to whisk all the dry ingredients together before adding the apricot paste.
FAQ
Recipe Card
No Bake Carrot Cake Bars
Equipment
- Food processor
- 8×8 baking dish
- Parchment paper
Ingredients
Wet
- 1 cup grated carrots ~2 large carrots
- 1 ½ cup apricots
- 1 lg orange, juiced
Dry
- 1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
- ½ cup oat flour
- 1 cup unsweetened desiccated coconut*
- 1 TBSP ground flaxseeds
- 1 tsp salt
- ¼ tsp turmeric optional
Frosting
- 1 batch High Protein Vegan Frosting
Instructions
- Blend the apricots and orange juice into a paste using a high speed blender.
- Grate the carrots using a medium size hole. Aim for the same size as the desiccated coconut.
- In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients: oats, oat flour, desiccated coconut, ground flaxseed, salt, and turmeric (if using).
- Using a spatula, combine the apricot paste and grated carrots with the dry ingredients. The dough should stick together when pressed. If the dough still feels dry or crumbly, add more orange juice, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the dough feels tacky and can stick to itself.
- Line an 8×8 square baking dish with parchment paper and lightly grease the paper.
- Firmly press the dough into the baking dish.
- Chill for at least 30 minutes before slicing into bars.
Frosted Bars
- Prepare a batch of high protein vegan frosting (see recipe notes)
- Add frosting to a piping bag fit with a wilton or star tip.
- Pipe a cupcake-like spiral on top of each bar.
Notes
Did you try this recipe? I’d love to hear how it went! A baker’s job is never done – any and all feedback is welcome 🙂
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