These EASY Carrot Cake Oatmeal Breakfast Bars make a quick on-the-go breakfast, snack or healthy dessert made with zero refined sugar and drizzled with a delicious maple cream cheese frosting!
You are going to love these cozy and delicious carrot cake oatmeal breakfast bars! I originally shared this recipe back in 2017, but over the years I’ve had a few complaints that the bars were too crumbly and fell apart. SO I have tested and re-tested this recipe a few times, made some tweaks and I’m LOVING how they turned out! Cake-like with great texture while still holding their shape. The maple cream cheese drizzle on top is literal icing on the cake!
Why You’ll Love this Recipe
- Super easy to make all in one bowl!
- These bars are made healthier with whole grain oats, almond milk and zero butter or refined sugar.
- Enjoy these bars as a grab-and-go breakfast, as a midday snack or even a healthy dessert.
- Perfect for Easter brunch and packed with a whole cup of grated carrots!
Ingredients You’ll Need
- rolled oats – we are using a mixture of gluten-free oats along with some oat flour to get that delicious cake-like texture. See instructions below on how to make your own oat flour right at home!
- baking powder – acts as a leavening agent to help the bars rise.
- carrots – you’ll need one heaping cup of shredded carrots, about 2 medium carrots.
- egg – adds protein and gives these bars their fluffy texture and height.
- coconut oil – for additional moisture and fluffiness! Feel free to substitute with another type of oil if you prefer or even butter.
- milk – I used unsweetened almond milk in these carrot cake bars, but any type of milk will work.
- maple syrup – naturally sweetens these bars without using any refined sugar, you could also use honey or other natural sweetener.
- vanilla extract – extra boost of flavor.
- spices – a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg and salt
Feel free to add in some fun mix-ins such as raisins, chia seeds, chopped walnuts, pecans or any other type of nuts that you prefer or you could even sprinkle them on top of the maple cream cheese glaze!
How to Make Carrot Cake Oatmeal Bars
- Mix ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the oat flour, rolled oats, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together egg, milk, maple syrup, coconut oil and vanilla and whisk until well-combined. Pour the wet ingredients in with the dry ingredients, add in the shredded carrots, and mix until just combined.
- Bake the bars. Pour the carrot cake batter into a prepared 8×8-inch baking pan and bake in the oven at 350 degrees F for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the bars sit for 5 minutes then remove from pan and let cool completely on a wire rack.
- Make cream cheese frosting. While the bars are cooling, add cream cheese, maple syrup, milk and vanilla extract to the bowl of a stand mixer (or you can use an electric mixer) and whip on high until smooth. Feel free to add in more milk one teaspoon at a time until you have your desired creaminess.
- Prepare bars. Drizzle the cream cheese frosting over the bars once they have cooled and cut into 16 pieces. Enjoy!
How to Make Your Own Oat Flour
To make your own oat flour, you simply take old fashioned rolled oats (or instant oats) and blend them in your food processor or blender for about 60 seconds until they resemble a fine, powdery flour – and that’s it! You can of course just buy your own oat flour at the store, but this method saves you money and the flour will last up to three months in your pantry. The ratio for oat flour is one cup of oats = one cup of oat flour so it’s pretty easy to measure out.
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Prepping and Storage
To Store: You can keep these carrot cake oatmeal bars stored in a sealed, airtight container for up to 5 days in the fridge. I like to store them in a single layer to prevent the cream cheese from
To Freeze: These bars freeze really well too! I recommend freezing the bars individually and just pulling them out to thaw as needed. When ready to eat, just pop them in the microwave for 3o to 40 seconds or simply thaw out at room temperature. These will keep in the freezer for up to 3 months!
More Bars You’ll Love
- No Bake Almond Butter Granola Bars
- Dark Chocolate Almond Butter Bars
- Blueberry Oatmeal Breakfast Bars
- No Bake Chocolate Pumpkin Bars
- Healthier Pumpkin Bars
- Homemade KIND Bars
Hope you all enjoy these Carrot Cake Oatmeal Breakfast Bars and if you love these as much as we do, please leave ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ below and don’t forget to tag me on Instagram using the hashtag #eatyourselfskinny! I love seeing all your delicious recreations!
Carrot Cake Oatmeal Breakfast Bars
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
- 1 cup oat flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup almond milk, or milk of choice
- 1/4 cup coconut oil, melted and cooled slightly
- 1/3 cup maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup grated carrots
For the Frosting:
- 3 oz cream cheese
- 1 Tbsp maple syrup
- 1 Tbso almond milk, or milk of choice
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- In a small bowl, whisk together oats, oat flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, milk, coconut oil, maple syrup and vanilla and stir until well-combined.
- Pour the wet ingredients in with the dry ingredients, add in the grated carrots, and mix everything until just combined.
- Pour the oat mixture into a prepared 8×8-inch baking dish and bake in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Let the carrot cake bars sit for 5 minutes then remove from pan and let cool completely on a wire rack.
- While the bars are cooling, add cream cheese to a small bowl and heat in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Add in the maple syrup, a tablespoon of milk and 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla and whisk together until smooth. Feel free to add more milk a teaspoon at a time until you get your desired consistency.
- Slice the bars into 16 pieces and drizzle the cream cheese frosting over top, enjoy!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
These look so good! Would it be possible to substitute flour for the oats? Also I love how there is no refined sugar included; I am trying so hard to eliminate all refined sugar from my lifestyle!
I’m always on the lookout for healthier morning snacks for my relatively picky toddlers that “don’t make mama fat(ter)”, so this is going in my test pipeline. My kids don’t recognize breakfast cereal. Yet. My 4 year old actually thought the colorful boxes in the cereal aisle at Kroger were toys. (Oh yay, I’ve done ONE thing right. The other things that go into raising kids remain to be judged when they’re older. Eeps.)
P.S. I love that commenter “Amaryah” said she used a “flax egg”. I looked it up, and it’s just as easy as it sounds, and I even keep flax meal on hand! A friend and her family is vegan, so being able to do substitutions to make something sweet for a playdate snack is always greatly appreciated. It’s easy enough to go savory, sweet is challenging, as my sweetener of choice is honey, and my friend informed me that unless certified vegan, regular white sugar has been bleached with bone meal. I had no idea.
I made these today for the first time and OH MY GOSH are they amazing!! Mine too were a bit crumbly, so I served them in a small dish with a fork! Love this easy recipe, thank you!
I just made this recipe yesterday and they tasted super yummy! The taste of carrot cake was spot on and I loved the cream cheese frosting too. I’m normally not a big fan of frosting but I really liked this frosting because it didn’t have the overwhelming taste of powdered sugar since it used maple syrup for sweetener instead which I much more prefer. I used a mix of maple syrup and light golden blue agave syrup since I was running out of maple syrup and it turned out great. For the milk I used some unsweetened almond milk since that’s what I had, but since my milk was in the fridge, when I added it to the coconut oil mixture, the coconut oil instantly turned into its solid form because of the cold milk. I didn’t mind so much but it did mean I had coconut oil clumps throughout my batter. I tried sticking my batter bowl in the preheating oven to help melt the coconut oil clumps so that they would mix in better and that seemed to help but I don’t think it was a big deal. If you want to avoid this result then just make sure your nut milk is at room temperature when you add it to the recipe. I baked this in a muffin tin and it made 12 muffins. I baked them for 35 minutes and they turned out perfectly fine, but I’m sure that since they were in muffin tins then I probably could have baked them for less time but in the end it wasn’t a problem since they weren’t burnt or anything when they came out of the oven. The muffins were more on the chewy side because it is mainly oats as the base, rather than cake, but it wasn’t a problem, just something to keep in mind since they aren’t going to turn out cake like, more so just like softened oats texture. I still think they tasted super good though, and I shared them with my friends and they all really liked it too, so I highly recommend this recipe! 😋👍🏼
Are the rolled oats the quick-cooking kind?
No I used old fashioned rolled oats 🙂
Like another poster mentioned, they look cakey in the photos provided but mine looked nothing like that. They were oaty and pretty chunky + fell apart easily/hard to cut clean. They still taste delicious and the cream cheese icing was divine. I think I’ll try to use half oat flour and oats next time to achieve that cake like consistency. Thanks for the fab recipe I have a 7 week old at home that doesn’t give me too much time to eat proper lol.
Made these today and they taste great! However, mine turned out very crumbly and difficult to cut into bars because they keep falling apart…. Any suggestions?
Hmm I’m not sure why they turned out so crumbly for you, I’m sorry to hear that! I would try adding an extra egg in with the batter, I’ll test this out soon and see how they turn out! 🙂
I wonder if I could substitute apple sauce for the coconut oil?
Yes I’m sure you could! Please let me know how they turn out 🙂
16 servings out of 8” x 8” pan, is that correct?
Yes 16 square bars 🙂