vegan carrot cake

I am so in love with carrot cake. It is moist and juicy and amazing with tea. This recipe can also be made in a loaf tin or as muffins. The only difference would be reducing your cooking time for smaller tins. The go to rule is if a toothpick comes out clean your cake is cooked.

What you’ll need:

Batter:

1 cup                     almond/soy milk

1 TBS                     apple cider vinegar

2 cups                   cake flour

1 tsp                      baking powder

1 tsp                      bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp                      fine salt

1 tsp                      cinnamon

1 ½ tsp                  mixed spice

3 large                  carrots, grated

1 cup                     white sugar

½ cup                    coconut sugar (you can also use light brown)

¾ cup                    sunflower or canola oil

2 tsp                      vanilla paste or essence

½ cup                    apple sauce (like baby food)

Icing:

½ cup                    vegan butter or margarine

1 ½ cups               icing sugar, sifted

1 tsp                      vanilla essence

½ cup                    pecan nuts

How to do it:

1. Preheat your oven to 180°C. Then line and spray two medium sized cake tins.
2. In a small jug or bowl, combine the plant milk and vinegar. Give it a stir and set aside. This is going to be your vegan buttermilk.
3. In a medium sized mixing bowl combine the flour, baking powder, bicarb, salt, cinnamon, and mixed spice. Give this a quick whisk just to make sure it is evenly incorporated.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the sugars, vanilla, oil, apple sauce and the vegan buttermilk mixture.
5. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix together until you can’t see any more flour.
6. Add your grated carrots and mix until evenly distributed.
7. Divide the batter between the two cake tins and bake for 30-40 minutes until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Mine took 36 minutes so just keep an eye on them.
8. Let cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
9. While your cakes are cooling you can prepare the icing.
10. In the bowl of a stand mixer, add your softened butter. Using a whisk attachment, beat until light and fluffy.
11. Add your icing sugar a bit at a time, beating between each addition until everything is incorporated. Continue to beat for another 3-4 minutes until the icing is lighter in colour and fluffier.
12. Ice your cake only when it is fully cooled otherwise the icing will slide straight off. Remember to sandwich your two cakes together with a good dollop of icing.
13. Decorate as desired and sprinkle with chopped pecan nuts. I used a basket weave nozzle to get a baskety effect but you can just smooth the icing around if you want quick and easy.

If you are looking for more delicious vegan cakes, how about trying these on for size!

Best ever vegan chocolate cake

Very Berry vanilla cake

I hope you enjoy making this as much as I did! And as always, if you give it a try send me a message and let me know how it turned out and what improvements you made! You can also tag me in your creations on Instagram @ninarlasvegas.

Love and health to all of you, and happy baking!

xx

N