Egg Free, Dairy Free Carrot Cake

Posted by Cris on | April 1, 2011 | No Comments

This is a great egg-free cake that I made for my son’s first birthday party.

It’s easy to make, somewhat healthy (what with all that carrot!) and got rave reviews from everyone there. Plenty of party goers were surprised to learn it was egg and dairy free.

The Cake

Ingredients

• 1 ¼ cups brown sugar
• ¾ cup vegetable oil (I used Rice Bran Oil)
• Substitute for three eggs:  3 tablespoons of vinegar and 3 teaspoons of baking soda (mix together in small bowl just before you need to add it to the cake mixture)
• 1 ½ cups plain four
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda (in addition to the baking soda used in the egg replacer)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 ½ cups grated carrot
• ½ cup sultanas

Instructions:

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Mix the sugar and oil in your electric mixer (or by hand, if you want a workout!)  for about two minutes.

Add the vinegar-baking soda mixture (the egg substitute) and mix through.

Sift the flour, baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda, cinnamon and ginger into the wet ingredients, then add the carrot;  mix until combined.

Pour into a 9 x 9 inch pan that has been greased with diary free margarine or sprayed with Pam/Crisco no-stick baking spray.

Bake for 60 minutes.  Let cool completely, then remove from pan.

The Icing:

Mix 2 cups of icing sugar with 1- 2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed orange juice and 1 teaspoon of orange zest (grated orange rind). Don’t skip on the orange juice or zest: the flavour of this icing sets off the entire cake.

Add dairy-free margarine or Crisco vegetable shortening (see our “Dairy Free Finds” post, under “Stuff to Buy”), tablespoon by tablespoon, until the icing reaches your desired consistency (somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 of a cup should do it..)

Tips:

* This is a very moist cake that actually tastes better the next day, after it has had a chance to set in the fridge for overnight and firm up a little.  So a good cake to prepare one or two days in advance.

* I doubled this cake recipe and used a large teddy-shaped cake pan for my son’s birthday, and it turned out great.

* I also added various shades of brown and black food colouring to the icing to decorate the teddy bear.

- Cris

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