Carrot Creations: Celebrating World Carrot Day

Every year on April 4th, food lovers, health enthusiasts, and chefs around the globe come together to celebrate World Carrot Day, a day dedicated to one of the most versatile and nutritious vegetables in the world. Whether roasted to perfection, blended into a comforting soup, or transformed into a decadent cake, carrots have earned their place in kitchens across cultures and cuisines.

In honor of this vibrant root vegetable, we’re sharing a collection of delicious carrot-inspired recipes that showcase its natural sweetness, earthy depth, and endless culinary possibilities.

Grab a bunch of fresh, crisp carrots, and let’s get cooking because today, we celebrate a vegetable that’s anything but ordinary!

Vegan Carrot Cake

Ingredients:

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Method:

1. Grease two 18cm cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg into a mixing bowl.
3. Add the grated carrot and the brown sugar.
4. Prepare the flax eggs, by mixing 30ml flaxseed meal with 90ml water and allowing to sit for a minute.
5. In the meantime, add the oil, vanilla and apple cider vinegar to the mixing bowl.
6. Add the flax eggs.
7. Mix everything together in the mixing bowl. Have a little patience and let the batter sit for a minute or two so that the carrots can release more water into the batter to enable you to mix it all together.
8. If your batter is still too dry to mix after letting it sit for a couple of minutes (and only if it’s too dry to mix after sitting for a few minutes) then add in a little non-dairy milk, only as much as you need to get the batter to a wet enough consistency so that it can mix properly.
9. Lastly add the chopped walnuts if you want to add them.
10. Place into prepared tins
11. Place into the oven & bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
12. Allow the cakes to cool completely on a cooling rack.
13. While the cakes are cooling, prepare your frosting.
14. Add the icing sugar, vegan butter, vanilla, apple cider vinegar and 45ml of lemon juice to an electric mixer bowl.
15. Start mixing on low speed.
16. If your frosting is too thick then add in more lemon juice a drop at a time as needed to get your frosting mix to the perfect consistency. If your frosting ends up too thin, add more icing sugar.
17. Add frosting to the top of one of the layers.
18. Add the other layer on top and complete the frosting of the top and sides of the cake.
19. Sprinkle crushed walnuts on top of the cake and serve.

Carrot Bacon

Method

1. In a blender or medium-sized bowl, whisk together soy sauce, olive oil, maple syrup, tahini, paprika,
   garlic powder, pepper and liquid smoke. Set aside the mixture in a bowl.
2. Use a vegetable peeler, and peel the carrot from end to end, to create bacon-like strips.
3. Add the strips to the bowl with the marinade, and allow to marinate for at least 15 mins. The longer the better.
4. Cook in an air fryer in batches at 180°C for 10 mins.
5. To bake in an oven: Preheat oven to 200°C. Bake carrots on a lined baking sheet for 10-15 minutes
6. flipping halfway through. Depending on your oven, definitely check on them every 5 mins in case they start to burn.