When I mentioned to my friends that I was working on this vegan carrot cake muffin recipe, to my surprise, I got a mixed response. Some were very keen to try the recipe, but others were put off by the idea of eating vegetables inside a cake.
But I am a big carrot cake lover, so I simply had to create this vegan & dairy-free recipe and hope that by making them into cute bitesize muffins it would be more appealing to all the carrot cake haters out there.
I have made these gluten-free as I do believe that with the right flour, you can achieve really lovely squidgy cakes with none of the belly aches! But if you prefer, you can substitute the flour like-for-like with gluten-based flour.
Carrots are quite a sweet vegetable full of moisture, so I believe they complement desserts and cakes well. But I will leave the final verdict to you, after you try out my version of this classic cake, in muffin form!
Equipment:
Ingredients:
Cupcake Mix
- 9 tbsp aquafaba (the water from a can of chickpeas)
- 200 g Soft light brown sugar
- 125 ml Organic sunflower oil
- 240 g Gluten-free self-raising flour
- 1 tsp Baking powder
- 1 tsp Ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp Ground ginger
- 230 g carrots finely grated
- 100 g Pecans roughly chopped
Frosting
- 200 g Icing sugar
- 100 g Vegan cream cheese
- 50 g Vegan butter
- 50 g Coconut yoghurt I use Alpro soy yoghurt
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 180° (fan 160)
- Grease a muffin tray (the mix makes 6 large muffins or 12 smaller muffins)
- Start whisking the aquafaba with a mixer (or a handheld electric whisk), you’ll want to whisk for about 10 minutes until the mix is stiff and has formed white peaks
- Gradually spoon in the sugar to the aquafaba mix whilst still whisking
- Set aside the aquafaba and sugar mix
- Sift the flour with the baking powder and spices into a large bowl
- Mix in the finely grated carrots and chopped pecans to the flour mix.
- Stir in the oil until well incorporated and then fold in the aquafaba-sugar mix
- Pour the cake mix into the greased muffin moulds
- Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes until golden brown
- Take out of the oven and leave to cool
- Whilst waiting, sieve the icing sugar into a bowl
- Whip up the butter and cream cheese together until smooth and well incorporated
- Whisk in all the icing sugar to the butter and cream cheese mix
- Gradually spoon in the yoghurt whilst mixing, take it slowly to avoid curdling.
- Once the muffins have cooled, pipe on the frosting – or simply spoon straight on top!
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