Carrot cake with walnuts on a large white dish

Carrot and Orange Cake by Lizzie King

This is so orangey and spicy with a lovely rich sponge and a light zesty icing, I think you’ll take a shine to it. There is so much fruit and veg packed in here it’s basically a health food in cake form.

Serves 8-10

Ingredients

For the cake:
130g ground almonds
120g flour (buckwheat if gf)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1⁄2 tsp sea salt flakes
3 eggs
2 oranges, zest plus 1 juiced
4 tbsp maple syrup, plus extra for decoration
120g butter, melted
¼ cup walnuts, roughly chopped
200g carrots (2 large carrots), grated
1 apple, cored and grated
1 tsp apple cider vinegar

For the icing:
200g coconut milk solids 50g coconut yoghurt
(OR 200g Cream cheese + 100g natural yoghurt)
3 tbsp honey
1 orange, zested
Handful walnuts to decorate

Method

Preheat the oven to 170 C.

In a large mixing bowl combine the ground almonds, flour, spices, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and sea salt.

Beat the eggs together in small bowl and stir in the orange juice, zest, maple syrup and melted butter until mixed well.

Add this in to the our mixture and carefully combine until just mixed, then add the chopped walnuts, grated carrots and apple, as well as apple cider vinegar, folding until combined.

Scrape the batter into a lined 8” cake tin, and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and cracking slightly. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Whip the frosting ingredients together with a hand held whisk and leave in the fridge until cake is cool enough to ice.

Ice and decorate with extra zest, walnut pieces and drizzle with more maple syrup if you want.

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