Carrot, Pecan & Coconut Cake with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

Carrot cake has a special place in so many people’s hearts. This one is whipped up in the Vitamix blender which makes light work of blending the raw carrots and mixing the whole cake. The frosting also comes together in under 1 minute. Grab your carrots and get baking! Created by @cheftomwalton

Cake Batter Ingredients

• 1 cup of pecans
• 3 medium carrots, peeled, roughly chopped
• 2 large free-range eggs, room temperature
• ⅓ cup coconut oil, melted
• ½ cup coconut yoghurt
• ⅓ cup desiccated coconut
• ⅓ cup currants
• 1 ½ cup gluten-free self-raising flour
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• Pinch of salt
• ½ cup coconut sugar (or brown sugar)

Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients

• 250 g cream cheese

• ¼ cup pure cream
• ½ cup icing sugar
• Zest 1 orange

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C then grease and line a cake tin with baking paper.
2. Add the pecans to the jug of the Vitamix and blend on speed 1 for 10 – 20 seconds to crush them, but not to a powder.
3. Tip the crushed pecans into a bowl then add the carrots to the blender and blend them on speed 2 for 30 seconds, to create a rough breadcrumb texture.
4. Add the remaining cake ingredients and ⅔ of the ground pecans. Blend on speed 2 for 20 seconds to combine everything.
5. Spoon the cake mix into the prepared tin and smooth out the batter with the back of a spoon.
6. Bake for approximately 25 – 30 minutes until the cake is firm in the center and a dry skewer or small knife comes out clean.
7. Allow the cake to cool for 10 minutes then unmould and cool completely before covering with the frosting.
8. For the frosting, combine the ingredients in a clean blender jug and blend on speed 3 for 30 seconds, scraping down the sides and blending again for 20 seconds. Spoon this over the completely cooled cake and finish with the remaining pecans.