Coconutty Carrot Cake for the Birthday Girl! (ME!)

If you like carrot cake, you will LOVE this Coconutty Carrot Cake! Layers of carrot cake with coconutty cashew icing, and all vegan. Mmm.. 

I am a fan of nearly any cake, really; it’s incredibly hard for me to choose which one I want, especially if I’m in charge of making it! But, all of this talk of carrot cake lately had me wanting to make one and experiment a bit with frosting. Here, I used the recipe from Hell Yeah It’s Vegan! as inspiration and went from there. This turned out incredibly delicious and the frosting tasted almost like the filling for a German Chocolate cake, YUM! Also, the recipe says it makes two 9” round cakes, but really it’s more like two SMALL 9” rounds or one large 9” round (like mine).

Coconutty Carrot Cake

Ingredients:

• 2 1/3 Cup Unbleached All Purpose Flour
• 1 tsp. Baking Powder
• 2 tsp. Baking Soda
• 1 1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. Nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. Salt
• 6 Tbsp. Ground Flaxseed Meal
• 1 Cup Warm Water
• 1 Cup Sugar
• 1/2 Cup Coconut Oil, Melted
• 1 VERY Ripe Banana, Mashed
• 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
• 2 Cups Grated Carrot
• 1 Cup Chopped Pecans (and an extra Cup of Finely Chopped Pecans for decoration)
• 1/3 Cup Unsweetened Shredded Coconut (plus tbsp. for decoration)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a very large bowl; sift it together so that there are no chunks. Next, take the flaxseed and stir it into the warm water, let it set for 10-15 minutes until it has a little bit of a paste consistency. In a medium-sized bowl place sugar, coconut oil, vanilla, banana, and flaxseed goop; stir together until mixed thoroughly.
2. Stir or use mixer to incorporate the wet mix into the dry mix, fold and stir together until there are no dry spots. Fold the coconut shreds, carrot, and pecans into the batter.
3. Take a 9” round pan and grease (oil) and flour it, then pour cake batter in and heat in the oven for 35 minutes. Once it is fully baked, take it out and set it aside to cool or put it into the refrigerator so that you can ice it sooner.
4. While you are waiting for it to cool, make the icing. Once it is cool, cut the cake into three small layers.

Icing Ingredients

• 2 Cups Raw Cashews, Soaked for 2-6 hours
• 1 Cup Water
• 1 Tbsp. Coconut Oil
• 1 1/2 tsp. Vanilla
• 1/4 tsp. Salt
• 3 Cups Powdered Sugar
• 1 Cup Large Unsweetened Coconut Flakes

Directions:

1. Blend the cashews, water, salt and vanilla until it is very creamy, with no chunks. Place in a mixer or stir sugar in vigorously, until it is combined with no powdered sugar chunks.
2. Place icing in refrigerator for at least an hour or two. Then, split mixture in half (roughly), and mix coconut chunks into one; use the coconut mixture to fill the layers between the cake. Use the rest of the icing on the top and sides of cake and then press the chopped pecans into the sides and sprinkle coconut shreds on top.

This coconutty carrot cake is a little time consuming but it is so worth it, my friends absolutely loved it and 99% of them NEVER eat vegan food! Try this out for any occasion and I’m sure it would work great as a cupcake recipe as well.