I wonder why exactly we associate carrot cake with Easter so much – because rabbits like to eat carrots? That’s hilarious. Or, well, it’s possible also that I am the only one who thinks of carrot cake for Easter. Anyway, let’s move on to the actual cake! (weird talk)
I created the recipe for this vegan carrot cake a few days ago with the intention to make a picture-perfect three-layer cake. Turns out the cake wasn’t the most photogenic one, but nonetheless it tastes great. It’s a dream of a moist, juicy and flavourful cake, and to help you avoid a few mistakes I made (e.g. cover the cake with aluminum foil – it will create steam underneath the foil and therefore make the cake a little too soggy), I’ve written down the instructions precisely.
As a side note, I’ve used the recipe from my book “Happily Healthy“ here as the base for the recipe, but adjusted the ingredients to make the cake vegan (for instance, I swapped the eggs for apple sauce). Personally, I think the icing is a little too sweet, but that’s always the case when I occasionally taste icing – it’s just not my kind of sweet.
So, here we go: vegan carrot cake – with plenty of walnuts, carrots, raisins, brown sugar, wholemeal spelt flour and a vegan cream cheese frosting!
Happy Easter!
Love,
Lea Lou
Vegan carrot cake
For one 3-layer cake (18 cm).
For the cake:
350 g carrots
60 g walnuts (or pecan nuts)
120 g wholemeal spelt flour (or wholemeal wheat flour)
120 g wheat flour
1,5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 pinch sea salt
50 g raisins
200 g vegetable oil
125 g vegan yogurt (or apple sauce)
150 g light brown sugar
1 tbsp syrup
For the icing:
150 g icing sugar
150 g vegan butter
150 g vegan cream cheese
1 vanilla pod
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180° (160° fan). Lightly brush a 18-cm cake tin with oil and line the bottom with baking paper.
Grate the carrots, chop the nuts.
Mix spelt flour, flour, baking powder and baking soda. Stir in cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt.
Whisk together vegetable oil, yogurt (or apple sauce), sugar and syrup, then mix the wet with the dry ingredients. Fold in carrots and nuts.
Spread the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake the cake for 110–120 minutes (it is quite high, that’s why it takes so long). Cover the cake with some kitchen paper in case it becomes too dark. As soon as a wooden skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean, the cake is done. Remove the cake from the oven, allow to cool in the tin.
Remove the cooled cake from the tin, and carefully slice it into three equally thick parts crosswise.
For the icing, whisk icing sugar, butter, cream cheese and the core of the vanilla bean until smooth and creamy.
Place the bottom layer of the cake onto a cake stand or plate, cover it with 1/4 of the icing. Now add the middle layer of the cake, spread with another 1/4 of the icing, then top the cake with the last layer and spread the top and sides of the cake with the remaining icing. Garnish the cake with walnuts, if desired, and chill until served.
The cake can be kept in the fridge for up to 5 days.
