Wednesday, working from home as the new normal. Except of course nothing is normal. After a day of more of less back to back MS Teams meetings it felt like the time was right to make a carrot cake.

I found a recipe online for vegan carrot cake, which also felt like the only way to make carrot cake. Except of course I did not have flax seeds but I did have real eggs. So it was not quite so vegan! Easy cake to make and I probably used more carrots because I couldn’t resist eating them up while doing the grating.

For the Carrot Cake:

• 2 cups (250g) All Purpose Flour
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
• 1 tsp Ground Nutmeg
• 2 and 1/3 cups (255g) Grated Carrot
• 1 and 1/2 cups (300g) Brown Sugar
• 2 Flax Eggs (2 Tbsp Ground Flaxseed Meal with 6 TbspWater)
• 1/2 cup (120ml) Extra Virgin Olive Oil*
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
• 1 cup (100g) Chopped Walnuts (Optional)

For the Lemon Buttercream Frosting:

• 3 and 3/4 cups (450g) Powdered (Confectioners) Sugar
• 3 Tbsp Vegan Butter
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 2 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
• 3–4 Tbsp Fresh Lemon Juice

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
2. Grease two 7-inch cake pans (See Notes*) and line the bottoms with parchment paper.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg into a mixing bowl.
4. Add the grated carrot and the brown sugar.
5. Prepare the flax eggs, by mixing 2 Tbsp Flaxseed Meal with 6 Tbsp Water and allowing to sit for a minute.
6. In the meantime, add the oil, vanilla and apple cider vinegar to the mixing bowl.
7. Add the flax eggs.
8. Mix everything together in the mixing bowl. Have a little patience and let the batter sit for a minute or two so that the carrots can release more water into the batter to enable you to mix it all together.
9. *If your batter is still too dry to mix after letting it sit for a couple of minutes (and only if it’s too dry to mix after sitting for a few minutes) then add in a little non-dairy milk, only as much as you need to get the batter to a wet enough consistency so that it can mix properly.
10. Lastly add the chopped walnuts if you want to add them.
11. Divide the mixture between the two 7-inch cake tins.
12. Place into the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
13. Allow the cakes to cool completely on a cooling rack.
14. While the cakes are cooling, prepare your frosting.
15. Add the powdered sugar, vegan butter, vanilla, apple cider vinegar and 3 Tbsp of lemon juice to an electric mixer bowl.
16. Start mixing on low speed.
17. If your frosting is too thick then add in more lemon juice a drop at a time as needed to get your frosting mix to the perfect consistency. If your frosting ends up too thin, add more powdered sugar.
18. Add frosting to the top of one of the layers.
19. Add the other layer on top and complete the frosting of the top and sides of the cake.
20. Sprinkle crushed walnuts on top of the cake and serve.