Voluptuous Vegan Carrot Cake with Zesty Lemon Icing

An old-school favourite, a blast from the past, if you will – the carrot cake. Now that I’ve made various vegan versions of this lil’ beauty, it’s hard to imagine using butter and eggs or cream cheese – you simply don’t need them to make this a rich, moist and delicious cake! I think this will be a great dessert for Easter and will look really pretty amongst all your other Easter foodie shenanigans!

Sorry I really wanted to us the word shenanigans.

Makes: One 7″/18cm cake. However, I recommend using a larger cake tin as mine turned out a little too deep.

• 2 cups all-purpose, plain flour
• 1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
• ½ cup desiccated coconut
• 1/2 cup raisins, first soaked for 10 minutes in water
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 2 teaspoons baking Powder
• 2 teaspoons baking Soda
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• ½ tsp salt
• 3 cups grated carrots
• 1 cup water (you may need less, just add it slowly)
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/3 cup oil

Icing:

• 2 – 2½ cups icing/powdered sugar
• 5 heaped tablespoons vegan butter (I use Pure)
• The juice of one lemon
• 2 teaspoons lemon extract
• Water or almond/soy milk to smooth out

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 177°C/gas mark 4 and grease a pie dish or a springform cake tin. Make it a large one though, otherwise your cake will be too deep. Place the first 10 ingredients into a large mixing bowl and combine with wooden spoon. Now add in the following four ingredients and mix until combined. Pour into your prepared cake tin/dish and bake for about 50 minutes. Check at the 40-45 minute mark with a skewer and if it comes out clean, your done! If not, wait another 5 minutes.

For the icing/frosting, start by beating the butter together with the lemon juice until soft. Then gradually add in the icing/powdered sugar. If you need add in a little water or milk to get a smooth consistency. Now drop in the lemon extract. Stir in any extra sugar until you have a smooth, thick and zesty icing!

Once the cake is done, let it cool completely (I put it in the fridge) and then smother with the icing/frosting. I decorated mine with thinly sliced carrots, walnuts and lemon zest, but you can do whatever you like!

“Hi Camden! I’m a big, fat carrot cake!”