Raw Carrot Cake with Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting

This recipe comes from a blog I discovered recently, This Rasome Vegan Life.    Even if you’re not a vegan or raw foodie, you really should check it out.  Em is incredibly talented at both creating exquisite recipes and taking beautiful photographs of them.  And her food, all vegan and mostly raw, is both beautiful and delicious.  I expect know you will be seeing more of it.

I made this particular cake for my Step Dad’s birthday.  Although I’m certain he would have been more than satisfied with a plate of oatmeal cookies (his usual!), I wanted something a bit more complex.  It’s not actually all that difficult to make.  The “cream cheese” frosting is cashew based, as most DIY faux cheeses are it seems.  It’s thick but not overly sweet.  The cake is a mixture of carrots, oats and dried fruits.  It is a very dense and filling cake and kind of reminds me of a frosted Lara bar.

Raw Carrot Cake with Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting

From This Rawsome Life

Cashew “Cream Cheese” Frosting:
2 cups cashews, preferably soaked for a couple hours
1-2 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons liquid coconut oil
1/2 cup maple syrup
Water, as needed

Cake:
3 large carrots, peeled
1 1/2 cups oat flour or buckwheat flour
1 cup dates
1 cup dried pineapple (or more dates)
1/2 cup dried coconut 
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Suggested Garnishes: almonds and dried figs (as pictured)

To make the frosting: blend all ingredients in your food processor or high speed blender until smooth, adding as little water as possible. Taste it and set aside.

To make the cake: Throw all the ingredients in your food processor and pulse until it’s all in really small pieces and sticks together.

Assembly: Press half the cake mix into the bottom of an adjustable spring-form pan.* Then spread on about 1/3 of the frosting. Put it in the freezer until the layer of frosting is hard.  Then press on the rest of the cake mix.  You can let it set in the fridge overnight, or frost it right away.  Take it out of the pan and use the remaining frosting, cover with whatever garnishes you like.  Enjoy!

*The recipe as listed makes a 6″ cake.  If you want a larger cake (mine was 9″), double the cake recipe.  You will not need to double the frosting recipe for a 9″ cake – the amounts listed above are more than enough.

Johanna