All-in-one Blender Carrot Cake- vegan

Unusually for carrot cake, this has a smooth texture with no "bits".

I am not a fan of adapting egg cake recipes; we have our standard, never-fail eggless cake which can be adapted in countless ways and I must admit I'm more than happy with that. Then my husband showed me "Recipe of the Week" in our local free paper, and it was a blender carrot cake with chocolate buttercream icing. At first I was horrified: 4 eggs, vegetable oil and too much caster sugar, no grated bits or nuts or raisins and -worst of all- chocolate icing! But I gradually came round to his way of thinking: replace the eggs with flax eggs and self-raising flour, forget the icing, cut down the excessive amount of sugar and use demerara instead of white, swap the unhealthy vegetable oil for coconut oil and add a few flavoursome bits and bobs... and you're left with the concept of a smooth vegan carrot cake but with all the tastes you'd expect that you just throw in your food processor or blender. Actually, the idea was beginning to appeal so I set about collecting the ingredients from the storecupboard and the resulting recipe has so many changes from the original that we can truly call it our own.

3 medium-sized carrots, peeled and sliced
250ml liquefied coconut oil
300g demerara sugar
4 flax eggs (see link above)
150g plain flour
150g self-raising flour
1 tab baking powder
100g raisins
1/2 tab ground cardamom
1/2 tab ground cinnamon

• Preheat your oven to 180C; meanwhile  assemble and measure out the ingredients and prepare a 10" cake tin or silicone mould. 
• Whisk up the flax eggs.
• Put the carrots, sugar, oil, flax eggs, raisins and spices in you food processor or blender and whizz until a smooth mixture is formed.
• With the motor still running, carefully throw in the flour and baking powder and continue until it is well mixed in. The batter is not as runny as you might expect.
• Put into the tin or mould and bake for 30- 40 mins. (The skewer test will help you judge when it's done.) The top will have browned slightly.

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