easter treats part II: Low fat vegan carrot cake
Okay so this might not be your traditional Easter dessert, but Easter bunny… carrots… carrot cake – it kind of works! This isn’t your basic carrot cake though. The cake itself is completely vegan and you totally would never be able to tell! Although this recipe isn’t fat free, its definitely a lower fat version of the classic dessert (which are usually about 400 calories and more than 15g of fat) – and you’re totally allowed to treat yourself once in a while! Its seriously so moist, and the vanilla and bananas give it a unique blast of flavour.
The ricotta honey icing makes a lower fat and sugar icing than your traditional cream cheese frosting. Its not overly sweet, and the ricotta gives it a super rich texture.
Cake:
• 3 medium carrots, grated
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 2 tsp lemon juice
Wet ingredients
• 1 tbsp ground flax + 3 tbsp water, 1 banana mashed (egg replacer for 2 eggs)**
• 1/4 cup olive or vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
Dry ingredients
• 1/4 cup sweetener
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp cinnamon
**Can easily be made non-vegan by using 2 eggs instead of the egg replacer, and use 1/2 banana instead
Ricotta honey icing (not vegan)
• 1 cup low fat (skim) ricotta
• 1 tbsp honey
• 3 tbsp icing sugar
• 1 tbsp skim milk
• 2 tbsp unsweetened shredded coconut (optional)
Instructions:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Make the egg replacer by combining the flax and water, and mashed banana.
3. Mix all the wet ingredients together.
4. Sift all the dry ingredients together, and pour into the wet ingredients.
5. Add the carrots, raisins, and lemon juice and mix the cake batter well.
6. Pour into an 8×8 baking dish, and bake for 35-45 minutes, or until you stick a fork in and it comes out dry.
7. Make the icing while the cake is baking. Wait for the cake to cool for 10 minutes before icing it.
Number of servings: 6 pieces
Nutritional information:
With icing – 229.7 calories, 4g fat, 40g carbs, 8g protein
Without icing – 147 calories, 0.83g fat, 31.5g carbs, 3g protein
Alright, so we think we’ve gotten our baking fix for the next little bit. We’ll be back with our outfit posts very soon and we’ve also got some exciting collaborations coming as well. Hope you enjoy this tasty treat and have a happy Easter!
.
You May Also Like
8 Comments
Anna
Oooh. I’m going to have to pin this to Pinterest and try this (sans raisins). For some reason, I’ve always been averse to raisins in baked goods. Hehe. I’m a carrot cake addict, though! I always get the pumpkin and carrot cakes with cream cheese frosting from the same vendor at the farmer’s market. I’ve been doing that for years. I’m telling you, that woman is some sort of a spell caster. I’m sure of it. ;D
– Anna
ourMode
To be honest, the raisins were sort of just an experimental addition! We literally eat raisins by the handful though, so we might’ve been biased there. You can totally use chocolate chips in place of the raisins (TOTALLY recommended), or just have a good ol’ plain carrot cake. Mmmm cream cheese frosting though… our mouths are watering! We totally feel you though, there’s something magical about carrot cakes, especially the home baked, family recipe variety!
ammcneil23
These look unreal! I’ll have to try them out.
Amy
ourMode
Thanks Amy! If you do try them out we’d love to know what you think. We have pretty high carrot cake standards so we hope we did it some justice 😛
Danielle Drummond (@elleheart)
omg yum!
ourMode
😀 Thanks Danielle!
Silvia
This looks SO good. How do you guys even come up with this stuff? So original.
ourMode
Thanks Silvia! We just think of our favourite things to eat (like carrot cake), and put a healthier twist on them! We’ve always been health nuts and I try to bake vegan as often as possible, especially since vegan alternatives to eggs/dairy are healthier (i.e. applesauce, mashed bananas, flax seeds).