vegan carrot cake.

Babycakes! How I adore thee. This is by FAR the best carrot cake recipe I’ve ever used. Even the butter and egg recipes can’t beat it. This must be serious. A cake so light and fluffy and delicious, I didn’t even ice it in fear I’d eat the entire thing. I gave almost the whole cake away to friends and family because I’d sneak bites of it each trip into the kitchen. I sure love me some carrot cake. This recipe is meant for cupcakes but I poured it in 2 cake pans and it measured out perfect.

The two star ingredients in BabyCakes treats are agave nectar and coconut oil, which stand in for sugar and butter. To McKenna, they are miracle foods. ‘Coconut oil engages your thyroid, strengthens your metabolism and helps you lose weight. There have been tons of studies. You should check it out on the internet,’ she says as she slides her cupcakes into the oven. As someone who taste-tests everything in the bakery, McKenna is certainly proof that coconut oil isn’t fattening. She brags that models also know they won’t get fat on BabyCakes, which is why they are such fans. ‘We just did a big delivery for Sophie Dahl,’ she grins.

Agave nectar, sometimes called agave syrup, is the main sweetener in nearly all her products. Agave comes from the Mexican agave plant. It is sweeter than honey but less viscous and has a low glycaemic index which, McKenna says, ‘means it breaks down in your system at a slower rate and doesn’t shoot up your blood sugar’. People who find themselves exhausted after consuming sugar, high fructose corn syrup or honey (which is sometimes contaminated with corn syrup) are usually able to consume agave without any side effects. As a result, agave has become the must-have item for health-conscious New Yorkers.

3 cups Bob’s Red Mill baking flour ( I substituted 1 cup of this for stone wheat flour)

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tbsp baking soda

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp ground ginger

½ tsp ground nutmeg

2/3 cup coconut oil

1 cup agave nectar

2/3 cup  rice milk

1/2 cup hot water

1 tbsp pure vanilla extract

3 cups carrots, grated

1 tsp grated orange zest ( I added this!)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour 2 cake pans.


In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and 1½ teaspoons of salt.

Add the coconut oil, agave, rice milk and vanilla to the dry ingredients. Stir until a thick batter is formed. Add 1/2 cup of hot water and continue mixing until the batter is smooth. Using a plastic spatula gently fold in the carrots and zest until they are evenly distributed throughout the batter.

Pour into cake pans and bake for 30 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool for 20 minutes then transfer to wire rack a cool completely.

26 January 2011