Easy Vegan Carrot Cake with cream cheese frosting

 reading time: 3 min





Oh my, this carrot cake! My boyfriend's cousin has officially announced this to be her favourite cake and couldn't get enough of it!!

I don't know about you, but I usually spend my Easter weekend with my boyfriend and his family and eating waaayyy too much food, whoops. Including this moist wheat-free carrot cake with a dreamy-creamy thick "cream cheese" frosting.

The original recipe (from my friend R's uncle) wasn't vegan, a classic carrot cake with cream cheese, but it can be easily veganized with soy flour as the egg substitute, vegan butter and vegan cream cheese – duh! It's not the healthiest cake on my blog, but it's certainly one of the yummiest 😉

For a slightly healthier recipe check out my one bowl vegan carrot cake – but first, let's ogle this one!



EASY VEGAN CARROT CAKE with cream cheese frosting

Preparation time: 1 h (+ cooling time)
Main ingredients: carrots, spelt flour, sugar, oil
difficulty level: easy
makes: 1 carrot cake (22 cm / 9 inch cake)
suitable for: vegan, lactose-free, wheat-free, yeast-free

Ingredients

Carrot cake:
2 1/2 cups (310 g) spelt flour (I use the 1050 type) *
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon, or more
good pinch of cardamom, ground
pinch of nutmeg, ground
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup (220 g) brown sugar
3 cups (420 g) carrots, finely grated (about 4-5 medium-large carrots)
1 cup (250 ml) vegetable oil
4 tbsp soy flour + 4 tbsp water
1/2 cup (50 g) chopped pecan nuts

Cream cheese frosting:
1/2 cup (100 g) vegan butter, softened
1/2 cup (125 g) vegan cream cheese (I use the Simply V kind)
3 1/2 cups (420 g) icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt

optional garnish:
pecan nuts
marzipan carrots (the kind I'm using is not vegan, unfortunately! We are serving this cake to a non-vegan crowd, so my boyfriend and I are just gonna skip the carrots ☺️)
edible flowers, e. g. chamomile

* If you are confused about that flour type, check out this website which explains the difference between German flour types and US-American flour types. 


Instructions

Grease and flour two 22 cm (9'') square or round tins.

Pre-heat oven to 180°C / 350°F.

Prepare your "vegan eggs" by mixing 4 tablespoons of soy flour with 4 tablespoons of water in a small to medium bowl. Cream together with sugar very well. Add oil and beat again, just until blended.

In a large mixing bowl, sift together dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, cardamom, and salt.

Add the wet ingredients, and stir well to combine. Fold in carrots and nuts.

Transfer the batter into the two greased and floured tins, and bake in the preheated oven for about 35–40 minutes at 180°C / 350°F.

When a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean, remove tins from oven and allow to cool.


In the meantime, prepare the cream cheese frosting:

To make the cream cheese frosting, cream the vegan butter and icing sugar. It must be a very stiff mixture. Stir in by hand the vegan cream cheese and vanilla. Do not stir too vigorously or the mixture will become very runny.

When the cakes are cool, evenly spread about half of your cream cheese frosting on one cake. Place the other cake on top to sandwich them together, the spread the remaining frosting all around using a spatula until the entire cake is covered.

Garnish with pecan nuts, marzipan carrots, and edible flowers, if desired.

Enjoy!


TIPS:
- Instead of pecans, you could also use walnuts.
- You could also toss in a handful of raisins.
- To make this cake a little healthier, feel free to swap half of the oil for applesauce. You could also skip the cream cheese frosting (although I wouldn't recommend 😉) and simply dust the cake with powdered sugar (without creating layers). Or omit the vegan butter in the frosting, and double the amount of cream cheese, in which case I would suggest adding a bit of fresh lemon juice or lemon zest for that zingy flavour!
- This makes a pretty great sheet cake, too, with the frosting spread in a single layer on top.



 

♥

Maisy

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