Raw vegan carrot cake

If I’d added a ring of flowers to this I would’ve had to fiddle with the layout even more.

Continuing my raw series a.k.a. not wanting to turn on the oven, I went with carrot cake on this humid and cloudy afternoon.  Food processor definitely a must for this.  This turned out way better than the key lime pie.  Given the two, I would eat cooked carrot cake over the raw one, but when I’m the one cooking, the raw one definitely wins when it’s hot out.  I really loved the raw brownie bites, but I think this carrot cake is just OK comparatively (still tasty, but not wow!)

I’m learning that raw food (or at least raw baked goods) have a few important staples: dates, nuts, and soaked cashews.  Cashews sub for cheese/cream cheese/fat in lots of recipes, and dates are the sugar/egg component.  These cakes also have coconut, carrots, spices, and raisins (I used craisins).

Raw or not, carrot cake is sooooo much easier with the grating attachment of the food processor.  Takes about thirty seconds to grate three cups of carrots.

But seriously this is so great.

Dump the carrots in a bowl to the side.  Don’t worry about straggler pieces; since everything is getting mixed together in the end anyway you don’t even have to rinse out the food processor.  Toss in the walnuts, raisins, and dates, and process that until it looks like couscous and there’s no big chunks left:

Looks sort of like grape nuts. Has about as much to do with grape seeds as the cereal does

Next add those carrots back in and the spices (I don’t measure I just pour in a ton).  Process this for maybe a full minute or two (you might need to scrape) until it all sticks together.

I wonder if raw baked goods are popular in Alaska. Yknow, because of the sled dogs. Mush! Mush!

Now toss that mixture in the bowl and fold in the coconut (this gives it a nice texture and more dryness).

Bringing coconut into the fold

Rinse out your food processor, and put in your soaked cashews with a bit of honey and some of the soaking water.  The recipe I used didn’t call for soaking the cashews, but since I ran into that so much last time I decided to throw the cashews in water for an hour or so (basically while I ran to the store to get dates and carrots).  [Also I’m going to brag here that I literally ran to the store.  It was great!  Running errands is awesome.]  Process the cashews until they turn into cashew butter (this is easier if they are soaked).

If ‘hum’ were a transitive verb, then we could say no, this is not hummus, it’s more like hum-them.

To serve, you put a 1/4 cup of cake on a plate and top with maybe 2 tsp of cashew frosting.

My roommate started laughing when she saw me taking this picture, which is why I’m looking up at her and not at the cake

Raw carrot cake, adapted from two blue lemons because I didn’t have enough of the ingredients:

For cake:

3 cups shredded carrots (this took me 3 large carrots)

10 dates

3/4 c walnuts

1 c shredded coconut

3/4 c dried cranberries

1-ish tsp each cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice

In a food processor, pulse the dates, walnuts, and cranberries until well combined and there are no more big chunks.  Then add the carrots and spices and process until gloopy.  Fold in the coconut, set aside.

For frosting:

1 c cashews

1.5 TB honey or agave syrup

2-4 TB water

If you have time, soak the cashews in some water before you start, for as long as possible.  Then try blending the drained cashews with the honey in a food processor.  If it turns into cashew butter, whoo hoo!  If not, add water a tablespoon at a time and scrape down the sides until it’s smooth and looks like hummus.

To serve:

Mold your cake (I used 1/4 c measure), top with frosting.  Enjoy!

Tags: cake, carrot, dates, raw