Hello lovelies!

It’s a rainy Sunday here in sunny Cumbria (north west England for anyone interested!) and so I’m baking yet again. You may have noticed that I’ve changed my blog name! When I first made this blog I was planning on it being a lot different, but I’ve decided I just want to focus on recipes.

This week I’ve made a carrot cake, and I’ll warn you now – my cakes aren’t the prettiest! I often get my best friend to ice and decorate them for me, but she’s travelling unfortunately.

I swear I rave on about carrot cake, it’s all I ever talk about. This recipe is particularly good, I made it for my grandmother’s 70th birthday and everyone loved it. It’s so easy, everything goes in one bowl and no electric mixer is needed!

The icing is a little different for this, I’ve taken inspiration from the carrot cake served at my work. Instead of a vegan cream cheese, which I finds just melts with icing sugar and goes super runny – let me know if you’ve been able to make one though, I’ve used cashew nuts and almonds. You could use just cashew nuts, but I wouldn’t use just almonds as they don’t go particularly soft when soaked.

There’s a lot of room for changing things with this cake – use vegan cream cheese icing, cover the entire thing in a simple icing, use a vegan buttercream etc! You could also change the nuts used in the cake, or take them out completely.

One-bowl Vegan Carrot Cake Super easy tasty cake, so packed full of goodness you can almost convince yourself it’s healthy! If you plan on making the buttercream, soak the nuts in boiling water for a few hours (the longer the better!)

Ingredients For the cake 8 oz / 225g grated carrot

6 oz / 170g sultanas or raisins

10 oz / 280g wholemeal flour (Use plain white if you prefer!)

3.5 tsp baking powder

6 oz / 170g brown sugar

3 oz / 50g nuts ( I like walnuts! But totally optional)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger (I used fresh)

1/2 tsp nutmeg

200 ml vegetable oil

200 ml water

pinch of salt

dash of vinegar (I use apple cider vinegar – it brings the taste of the carrots out, trust me!)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract For the cashew/almond ‘buttercream’ 1/2 cup of cashews or blanched almonds (large handful!)

1 tbsp of orange or lemon juice

Water

Icing sugar For the top Icing sugar

Lemon juice

Pumpkin seeds Instructions For the cake Heat oven to 180°C/375°F/Gas mark 5. Grease and line two 9″ cake tins. Add all dry ingredients for the cake into a large bowl, and mix well. Add wet ingredients. Mix until incorporated. Bake for 30 minutes at 180, and then lower the temperature to 160 for another 30 minutes, until cooked. The cake should be springy to the touch, and have shrunk away from the tin. Cool in the tins and prepare the filling. For the ‘buttercream’ Blend the nuts until mostly smooth – this works best in a food processor. Add lemon juice and icing sugar to taste. If the mixture is too solid (you need to be able to spread it), add a small amount of water and blend – be careful not to add too much water! Assembly Spread ‘buttercream’ over one of the cakes and place the other on top. Mix icing sugar and lemon juice to make a thick icing, and swirl over the top of the cake. Sprinkle with pumpkin seeds if desired! Details Prep time: 20 mins Cook time: 60 mins Total time: 35 mins Yield: 1 cake

Enjoy!

B x