Heavenly Vegan Carrot Cake (Refined Sugar Free)

A more natural, body loving twist on the classic carrot cake 🥕

It was my mum’s birthday and she made it clear not to surprise her with anything that involved sweets and indulgence.

Weeks after the Christmas period ended for yet another year, we’ve been struggling to get back on our health game as plenty of festive goodies remain in the house. 🥴

But what’s a birthday without a cake, right?! 🥺

I had to find a way around this.

Learning about veganism has been so transformative in the way I view food and building recipes.

What a relief to realise that baking can still be delicious and not consist of thousands of calories and hundreds of grams of sugar per baked good.

This amazing cake is not only dairy + egg free, but also gluten + refined sugar free too, and still tastes so good. 🍰

But if all the generic components of a cake are missing, what did I use instead?

Makes: 8 servings

Ingredients:

• 300g buckwheat flour
• 80g coconut oil (in liquid form)
• 500ml almond milk
• 1 tsp bicarb soda
• 2 tsp baking soda (or 3 tsp baking soda if you don’t have bicarb – as I didn’t)
• 150g ground almonds
• 200g maple syrup (or organic acacia honey as an alternative sweetener but this eliminates the vegan aspect)
• 2 large carrots (peeled + grated)
• 40g dried cranberries
• 40g raisins

Creamy icing:

• 180g cashew nuts (soaked for 4h prior or overnight)
• 3-4 tbsp maple syrup
• 1-2 tbsp almond milk
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

How to:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200•C + grease two cake tins (for layering cakes on top of each other at the end)
2. Combine in a large mixing bowl: buckwheat flour, bicarb/baking soda, maple syrup, ground almonds
3. Add the grated carrots, cranberries, raisins, almond milk + coconut oil. Mix until the mixture becomes a thick paste.
4. Separate the mixture into the two cake tins and bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes. (I only needed 30! You can ensure this by sticking a knife in the middle and seeing if it comes out clean. If it does, it’s ready!)Leave the cakes to cool and in the mean time get started on the icing!
5. In a food processor, combine all the ingredients for the creamy icing and blitz until smooth.
   In order to obtain the perfect consistency, blitz over a period of 10 minutes so it isn’t too thick. You can always add a bit more almond milk to make runnier if need be. 🙂
6. When the cakes have cooled, ice the surface of one half and carefully place the other half on top. Then ice the surface of the top cake. I added more cinnamon + some hundreds and thousands to create a birthday vibe. 🎊

Note: Compared to regular cakes, this will be on the denser side due to the thickness of ingredients such as ground almonds and buckwheat flour.
Count your lucky stars you won’t be tempted to polish off the whole thing. 😋

In reflection, I figured this would make a great breakfast idea as it consists of all the key carbs, fats + protein needed to begin your day. Furthermore, the absence of refined sugar makes this way kinder to your body than your average breakfast cereal!

So, what do you reckon, cake for breakfast anyone?? 🙋‍♀️🙋‍♂️

If you liked this post, check out my recipe for Homemade, Comforting Maple Granola (Vegan, GF, DF) – another natural, low sugar idea for breakfast or even dessert ! Easy, creative & delicious. 

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Namaste,

Tori xoxo