Bake a cake for self-care!

Joanne Lawrence


One of my favourite self-care activities is baking. I love baking. It grounds me, I learn, I get to be creative. I may stress a little while doing it, but I love it. It’s a healthy stress. During the past year I have given myself more space to bake. I find when I am stressed, I now have a driver in me that makes me go to the kitchen and start getting all my ingredients and baking equipment out of the cupboards and bake what feels right at the time. I keep my ingredients topped up so I can do this whenever I feel the need.


I started to get more into baking when I changed to a vegan diet and towards a vegan lifestyle over two and a half years ago. This was inspired by my oldest friend, Kat. She explained to me her thoughts behind going vegan and told me about what she ate and when I started to try her vegan baking I was pretty much sold. You don’t have to be vegan to bake obviously, but that is how I found my passion for it. I also like the fact that when people who aren’t vegan try my baking, they can appreciate plant-based baking and can’t tell the difference.


I have also spent some time researching on YouTube recently, it is amazing what you can learn from YouTube and my skills have really improved. I am currently following Erin McDowell on Food52. She isn’t a vegan baker, but her techniques and creations are amazing. I even had a dream that I was baking with her the other night, so I am currently a little obsessed. How to make a Layer cake – this video was especially helpful. I got my note book out and everything 😊


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49pw2R4O1KU&list=WL&index=24&t=3008s


Lastly, I thought I would share one of my favourite and very simple recipes. It is a vegan carrot cake muffin recipe. For the non-vegans, hopefully it will give you an example of how easy vegan baking is 😊 Let me know how you get on with it, enjoy!


Take care of you,

Namaste,

Joanne x x


Vegan Carrot Cake Recipe


1.5 cups Carrots (grated)

1/3 cup non-dairy milk (almond is my favourite for this recipe)

1/2 cup + 2tbsps unsweetened apple sauce

3/4 cup plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/3 cup oil (I use vegetable for this recipe, coconut oil could also be used)

2 tbsps flax seeds

Preheat the oven to 180°CIn a large bowl sift together and mix all the dry ingredients – flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and flax seeds. Then add the sugar, mix well so there aren’t any lumps. In another bowl mix the wet ingredients – milk, apple sauce and oil. Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients, mix – I use an electric hand mixer but you can use a wooden spoon. Make sure the ingredients is combined but don’t over mix. Then fold in the grated carrot. Scoop the battery into either lined muffin tray or grease the tray and pour straight into the wells. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. These are very nice with a vanilla butter cream frosting, but also tasty without.