Carrot and walnut cake

Do you love carrot cake? Do you love walnuts? Well, this might just be the perfect recipe for you. It's a versatile and easy take on the traditional carrot cake. Being gluten-free and vegan, this is a great one to bake when you're trying to cater for people with lots of different allergies or preferences.

The carrots and raisins add moisture to the cake to negate that crumbly texture that can be present in many gluten-free cakes. The mix of fruit juice and spices in the cake strikes a lovely flavour balance.

This cake can be enjoyed in many different ways, I like to warm mine up and top it with almond butter. It could also be served topped with the recommended cashew icing for an easy dessert, or it could also be topped with cream, jam or yoghurt with a sprinkle of granola for an easy breakfast.

I love this one as a good way to use up leftover carrots, and the flavour profile can be easily changed to suit your preferences or available ingredients. You could choose to use a different mix of nuts, juice, spices, or syrup to cater it to what you enjoy.

Recipe

Ingredients

Cake

2 Medium carrots

190g Walnuts

250g Self-raising flour

1/2 tbsp Baking powder

90g Coconut Sugar

3 tbsp Fruit Juice (I use Lemon)

1/2 tsp Ginger

1 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Nutmeg

1 tsp Mixed spice

A pinch of salt

50g Ground almonds

120g Oil (I used coconut)

85g Raisins

1/4 cup Syrup (I use date syrup)

Iceing

130g Cashews

85g Raisins

1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

1/2 tsp Salt

A splash of fruit juice (I use orange)

2 tablespoons almond butter

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180 °C fan and line a tin (I use a square brownie tin, but a loaf or circular cake tin would also work) with baking paper.

2. Put the juice, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, mixed spice and raisins in a bowl and mix.

3. Next, grate the carrots and place them in a separate bowl with the flour, ground almonds, baking powder, salt and coconut sugar.

4. Chop your nuts, add them to the bowl and stir these ingredients together.

5. Next, stir in your coconut oil, syrup and spice mix.

6. Pour the mixture into your tin and bake for 25 to 30 minutes until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

7. For the icing: Put the raisins and cashews into a bowl of boiling water and let them sit for 10 minutes.

8. Add the cashews, raisins, juice, salt, almond butter and vanilla to a food processor and blend until smooth.

9. Once the cake is cool, spread the icing over, cut into slices and enjoy!

I hope you enjoyed reading, you can see what I've been baking recently on my Instagram page @rubysgfkitchen.

Happy Baking,

Ruby x