The best allergen free cake I've tasted! Carrot Cake with Lemon Icing

Yum!

It was my birthday last week and I wanted to have a cake and I wanted it to be yummy. I'd discovered a recipe on this blog and this blog a while ago that I'd passed onto a friend but not tried myself. She tried it and said it was great and so I set about making it for my birthday (my husband would have liked to make it but I had more time than him so I was happy to). Here's what I did:

Carrot Cake
2 cups gluten free plain flour (I used FG Roberts brand - NB it has soy in it for those concerned) 
1 cup of white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp of salt 
2 tsp of gluten free baking powder 
1/2 tsp of bicarb soda 
2 tsp of cinnamon 
3 cups grated carrots 
3/4 cup of canola oil 
1/2 cup of orange juice
1/2 cup of raisins (I think I might leave these out next time but they are better than sultanas I reckon)
1/2 cup shredded coconut (I don't think dessicated would be as nice for texture)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease a square or round pan with canola oil and line the base with baking paper cut to size (I think it would come out easily anyway but I wasn't going to risk it!).
Mix all the dry ingredients together then add the carrots, oil and orange juice. Mix with a wooden spoon until well combined. Fold in raisins and coconut. Pour mixture into cake pan and cook in oven for about 45mins or until a knife in the centre comes out clean. My oven is so slow it took a lot longer.

I also made an icing for it which I kept separate in order just to drizzle over the slices so I could freeze the rest of the cake more easily.


Lemon Icing
1 freshly squeezed lemon
3/4 -1 1/2 cups of gluten free icing sugar (depends on the juiciness of your lemon really!)

Make it up to your preferred consistency. I left it as a drizzle. The icing is quite sweet and the cake is very nice without it but the lemon flavour adds another dimension to the flavours and makes it look pretty.

I am going to make it into muffins next time. And I'm going to be looking out for more vegan recipes that I can adapt to be gluten free as well.