awesome carrot cake
I really love cake and there is always a reason to bake some!
However, it is not too long ago that I was still convinced – like many other people – that a proper cake needs to contain eggs. Every recipe without eggs felt like an alternative full of compromises, which could never be as good as the original. Already the term ‚egg replacer‘ sounded pretty unattractive to me. Honestly, it still does…. but I better should not judge anything, I didn’t try yet!
What I did try is to bake cake without using eggs. And this works excellently!
Why should anyone want to abstain from eggs in a cake? Well, there are several, individual reasons. As a vegan of course you abstain from any kind of animal product. Others specifically want to go against laying hen breeding. But there are also many people who are simply allergic to eggs or just don’t like them. Whatever reason, it is definitely worth trying to bake egg-free!
For all sceptics I’d like to provide the proof that in fact, it does work and is addictive:
The awesome vegan carrot cake.
Recipe:
- 3-4 carrots, grated
- 200 g applesauce (without added sugar)
- 100-120 g cane sugar
- 200 g grounded almonds
- 150 g spelt flour
- 100 g chopped nuts (almonds, walnuts…)
- 80 ml neutral edible oil (e.g. rapeseed)
- 1 tbsp. baking powder
- skin of a grated lemon or orange
- cinnamon (good dose, like you prefer it)
- a pinch of salt
- if you like 1-2 tbsp. Whiskey (no smoky one)
Mix applesauce, oil, sugar, salt, cinnamon, lemon skin and whiskey with a wire whisk. Mix flour with baking powder and add grounded almonds and chopped nuts. Stir dry ingredients into the applesauce mixture by using a spoon.
Fill the dough into a cake pan (the smaller the cake pan, the higher and more juicy the cake!) and put it into the oven. Bake at 160°C-175°C (top and bottom heat) for approximately 40-50 min. I usually check after 40 minutes by using a fork, turn down the temperature a bit afterwards and continue baking for 10 minutes. It all depends on the oven and the type of cake pan.
Let the cake cool down on a rack and optionally decorate with lemon-icing sugar icing and nuts.
It tastes best, if you let it rest some hours or over night. Enjoy!