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This recipe has transformed me into a carrot cake lover. I admit that carrot cake was not always my favorite. Recently, my father was recovering from surgery and feeling a bit blah, so I wanted to cheer him up by making one of his favorite cakes. I searched the web for a good easy conventional carrot cake recipe that I could vegan-ize. I took snippets from several recipes, but the main recipe that I consulted for the actual cake part was this recipe from InspiredTaste.com. This recipe promises an “incredibly moist” cake, and it does not disappoint! I simply vegan-ized this recipe by substituting a bit of baking powder and applesauce for the eggs, and using organic vegan sugars. By “vegan sugar,” I mean sugar that has not been filtered through the bone char of cattle to decolorize it. You can learn more about this process from this article.
There was another alteration I made to this recipe that I think is actually pretty crucial – I left out the raisins! Don’t get me wrong, I love raisins. I love to snack on them plain, on my salads, or in my Moroccan couscous. But I feel like they’re an abomination in carrot cake. And don’t even get me started on raisins in oatmeal cookies, but that’s another blog post. I know I’m not alone here. Even among carrot cake lovers, many love carrot cake just a little bit more WITHOUT the raisins. So if you love raisins in your cake, I recommend adding a half-cup of them to the batter along with the carrots and pecans. You do you. But as for me, my carrot cake is a raisin-free zone.
Finally, for the “cream cheese” frosting, I started with my favorite vegan sour cream recipe (coming soon) and then added powdered sugar, and just enough vegan milk to get the thickness that I wanted. If you want a very thick frosting, you can leave out the vegan milk altogether, but this recipe can be very stiff, and the powdered sugar can dry out the mixture and make it hard to blend. I was going for almost more of a glaze-like texture, and this was achieved with about two tbsp of vegan milk added after the powdered sugar.
I used this recipe to make a layer cake, dividing the batter between a pair of matching 9-inch cake pans, but you can also adapt this recipe to make cupcakes. Just keep an eye on the bake time and be aware that smaller cakes need less baking time. I recommend starting with about 15 minutes in a 350° oven and then testing its doneness by inserting a toothpick. If it doesn’t come out clean, bake some more, and try testing again about every two minutes until done. Do not overbake! If you do, you’ll end up with a dry cake, and nobunny likes that! Boom, still got it.
Also, don’t skip the oiling and parchment-lining step! I know it’s a pain and may seem like overkill, but trust me when I say it’s necessary. This cake is very moist and therefore very fragile. You want to be sure that the cake will turn out of the pan without breaking, so it mustn’t stick! If you do find yourself with a stubborn cake layer that just won’t turn out, don’t try to force it. Just leave the pan upside-down on the cooling rack and let gravity do the rest. Slowly and gradually the cake will release itself with (hopefully!) minimal damage to its surface.
Try serving this cake after a vegan brunch featuring Vegan Mini-Quiche Florentine, or bagels with vegan cream cheese schmear? For those who celebrate Lent, kick off Fat Tuesday right with my Vegan King Cake!
Moist and Easy Vegan Carrot Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 2 cups flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1.5 tsp cinnamon
- 1.25 cup canola vegetable, or safflower oil (something neutral)
- 1 cup vegan sugar
- 1 cup lightly packed, vegan brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 x 4-oz cups of applesauce
- about 3 cups shredded carrots
- about 1 cup chopped pecans
Cream-Cheese Frosting
- 1/2 cup water
- 2 tsp nutritional yeast
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 2 tbsp Apple cider vinegar
- 1.5 cups vegan powdered sugar
- 1 cup cashews
- up to 1/4 cup vegan milk
Garnish
- A handful shredded carrots
- a handful of coarsely chopped pecans
Instructions
Prep
- Place the cashews in a jar and pour boiled water over them. Cover and allow to soften for a minimum of 10 minutes.
- Oil two round 9-inch cake pans line the bottom of both pans with parchment paper, then oil the parchment paper
Make the Cake Layers
- Preheat the oven to 350°
- In a medium bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder salt and cinnamon until well combined
- In a larger bowl, mix the oil, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, and applesauce until well combined.
- Add about 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until well combined before adding the second 1/3, and repeat for the final 1/3.
- Add the shredded carrots and chopped pecans to the batter and stir together.
- Divide the cake batter between the two cake pans.
- Bake at 350° for 35 - 45 minutes. Check for doneness by inserting a toothpick into the center of the cake and checking whether it comes out clean. Do not overbake!
- When done, remove the cake pans from the oven and cool for about 5 minutes before attempting to turn out.
- Turn the cakes out onto a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before frosting.
Make the "Cream Cheese" Frosting
- Add the water, salt, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, powdered sugar, and pre-soaked and drained cashews to a blender.
- Blend on high 5-7 minutes very smooth.
- If the mixture is too thick for your blender add a little of the vegan milk just a tbsp at a time as needed to keep the blender going. You don't have to use the whole quarter-cup.
- At the end of 7-5 minutes, the mixture will begin to stiffen a bit - at this <g class="gr_ gr_123 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" id="123" data-gr-id="123">point</g> it is done.
- Keep the frosting in the refrigerator until the cake layers have been turned out and are completely cool.
Frost and Assemble the cake
- Turn one of the cake layers out onto a serving dish.
- Use about 1/3-1/2 of the frosting to cover the top of that cake layer
- Delicately place the other cake layer on top of the first.
- Use the remaining frosting to cover the top of the upper layer.
- Decorate the top with shredded carrot and chopped pecan pieces and then serve.