Vegan Carrot Cake; a gloriously soft carrot cake dressed up with walnuts, orange zest, sultanas, and a creamy vanilla frosting.
There are foods we forget about. Foods we dismiss as something meh whenever we aren’t eating them, but when we finally do, they bring unbridled joy.
Perhaps one of your mum’s dinners, an old chocolate bar or, in today’s case, a classic dessert. It catches you off guard and makes you wonder why you don’t eat it every single week.
Carrot Cake is an example of this for me.
It’s an incredibly old pud, having its origins buried hundreds of years ago in Western Europe (we really did make anything into a dessert back then). Where I write this from, in cloudy Scotland, the Carrot Cake’s popularity surged in times of rationing during the Second World War. Sugar was less readily available, so people had to get creative with what they had.
The carrots not only add characteristic sweetness and moistness, but a unique flavour to the cake. Stirring them through the brown-sugar scented cake batter with chunky walnuts, soft sultanas and warming spices improves things even further.
Thanks to such a wonderful combination of textures and flavours, this Vegan Carrot Cake is every bit as delicious and cosy as a regular Carrot Cake. Promise. I’ve eaten a lot of bad vegan cakes.
Need another great vegan cake recipe? Try out my Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes!
Bite into a slick of creamy vanilla frosting before sinking your teeth into that warming cinnamon-spiked cake. Chew, crunch, melt, squish.
This Vegan Carrot Cake is wonderfully simple to make too. As long as you have a whisk and a bowl, you can make the batter in minutes. The recipe follows a similar theme to regular Carrot Cakes in its use of oil rather than butter. This not only ensures that classic damp texture, but also a flavour departed from normal British cakes.
The eggs, often the trickiest thing to replace, are swapped out for plant-based milk and a bit of extra raising agent. I used an oat milk to make the Carrot Cake pictured, but I’m sure soy, rice, or almond milk would work just as nicely.
As for the frosting, any affordable vegan margarine can comfortably take the place of butter. Whipping a small amount of it with a cloud of icing sugar and a dash of vanilla extract will produce a fluffy frosting to rival any butter-based kind.
After that, a clumsy scatter of dried fruit, nuts, and any other bits you fancy will turn this cake into the rustic dream it should be.
I hope you’ll love this Vegan Carrot Cake as much as we have. We’ve been scoffing it for breakfast and any available snacking opportunity, and it’s really lifted spirits this week. Thanks as always for stopping by, I hope you’re staying as safe and as healthy as you can.
Want to save this Vegan Carrot Cake for later? You can pin the image below!
To make this Vegan Carrot Cake, simply follow the recipe below:
Ingredients
For the Vegan Carrot Cake:
- 150ml (⅔ cup) plant-based milk (I used oat milk)
- 1 tbsp vinegar
- 150ml (⅔ cup) olive or rapeseed oil
- 150g (¾ cup, packed down) soft light brown sugar
- 220g (scant 1 cup) self-raising flour
- 2 medium carrots, grated
- Handful of sultanas (optional)
- Handful of walnuts, chopped into wee bits (optional)
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground mixed spice
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- Zest of ½ an orange
- Pinch of salt
For the vegan vanilla frosting:
- 100g (3 ½ oz) plant-based margarine (I used Flora)
- 175g (1 ½ cups) icing sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract, or the seeds from ½ a vanilla pod
- 1 tsp of lemon or orange juice
- Sultanas, walnuts, orange zest, or whatever you like to decorate!
Instructions
For the Vegan Carrot Cake:
- Preheat your oven – 180 C / 160 C fan / 350 F / gas mark 4.
- Grease a square 20cm x 20cm (8 inch x 8 inch) cake tin and line the base with a bit of greaseproof paper.
- In a jug, stir together the milk and vinegar. Set aside to thicken and curdle slightly.
- In a large bowl, stir together the oil and sugar just to combine into a wet paste.
- Pour the milk mixture into the bowl, followed by the remaining cake ingredients, and gently stir together until just combined into a chunky even cake batter.
- Spoon the batter into your prepared cake tin.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 35-40 minutes or until risen and firm to the touch. For a good test, a skewer or sharp knife inserted into the cake should come out clean when the cake is ready!
- Allow the cake to cool completely in its tin. Meanwhile, prepare your frosting.
For the vegan vanilla frosting:
- In a clean large bowl, beat together the frosting ingredients well for a few minutes. You should have a fluffy off-white frosting after a good mixing.
- Once the cake is completely cool, slather on your frosting.
- Scatter over a few sultanas, walnuts, or anything you like, to decorate.
- Enjoy!
BE A MAVERICK: why not try grated parsnip instead of carrot for a new twist on this classic?
This Vegan Carrot Cake will keep well in an airtight container or on a covered cake stand for up to 4 days.
This looks delicious, especially the icing! Any tips on how you get it to stay firm? Mine has a habit of sometimes sliding off the cake haha.
Hi Kathleen – thank you! I find the lemon juice helps, the acid in it tends to firm up the frosting in my experience. Similarly, chilling the frosting for 10-20 minutes before spreading it on can help!