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One of my favorite cakes is carrot cake. I have a great recipe here on the blog but now that I’m trying to eat more plant based foods I decided to try a vegan carrot cake. These Vegan Carrot Cupcakes with Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting are made without eggs or egg substitute and have much less oil and sugar than the original recipe.
For the cream cheese frosting I used my favorite cream cheese frosting recipe. To make it vegan I just swapped out the butter and cream cheese with vegan butter and vegan cream cheese. Instead of the tablespoon of hot coffee, I added about a teaspoon of lemon juice for a bit more tang that I felt the cream cheese needed.
I only had one cupcake pan so I used a small loaf pan to bake up the rest of the batter. The cupcakes took about 20 minutes to bake. The small loaf cake took about 35 minutes. You could make all cupcakes (24) or two loaf cakes or two round cake layers, or 9×13 pan. Just check after 30 minutes and adjust time for size of pans and your oven.
Vegan Carrot Cupcakes with Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
1 1/2 C. all purpose flour
1 C. whole wheat flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
3 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. salt
8 oz. can crushed pineapple (undrained)
1 C. oat milk (could use any plant based milk)
2 tsp. vanilla
1 C. sugar (try mixing 1/2 white and 1/2 brown if you want)
1/2 C. oil
2 lg. carrots, grated (about 2 cups)
1/2 C. chopped walnuts (opt.)
1/2 C. raisins (opt.)
Cream Cheese Frosting(swap out the butter and cream cheese with vegan butter and cream cheese in the recipe)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare muffin pan.
In bowl, combine flours, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt.
In separate bowl, whisk together crushed pineapple, oat milk, vanilla, sugar, and oil.
Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Stir to combine. Fold in carrots, nuts and raisins.
Fill muffin cups and bake for about 20 minutes… until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean.
Cool cupcakes. Frost with cream cheese frosting.