Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease 3 8-inch cake tins plus line with parchment rounds. Note – this recipe has amounts for THREE layers of cake. If you are doing more layers or fewer layers, adjust the amounts accordingly!
In a large bowl, mix together the gluten free flour, both sugars, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. Then add in the non-dairy milk, neutral oil, and vanilla extract. Lastly, add in the carrots and walnuts and mix all until just combined.
Pour evenly into your greased and lined cake pans. Bake for 28-32 minutes – mine are perfect at exactly 30 – check to be sure they’re done by sticking in a toothpick and removing the pans when the toothpick comes out with just crumbs, not wet batter.
Set aside your cake pans to cool for about 15 minutes before removing the cake from the pan and putting onto a cooling rack to come to room temperature. Personally I like to let them come to room temperature for a few minutes and then stick in the fridge, as I find it easier to build a layer cake when the cake itself is cold.
While your cake layers are cooking and then cooling, it’s time to make the candied walnuts and frosting, starting with the walnuts since they will also need cool time. Put the butter and sugar into a small pan over medium heat. Let it heat up for about a minute until combined, then add in the walnuts. Cook for 3-5 minutes until they are coated – don’t let it burn! – then transfer the mixture to parchment paper to cool fully.
Lastly, just before putting together the cake, it’s time to make the frosting. Note – this amount of frosting will make what you see in these pictures, which is enough to frost between layers and on top, then do a sort of “naked cake” look on the outside. If you want to go heavier on the sides of the cake, I suggest making 1.5x the amount written above.
To make the frosting, simply add the vegan butter, vegan cream cheese, and vanilla extract to a bowl and mix first for a minute or two using a hand mixer or stand mixer. Then add in the powdered sugar one cup at a time. You can add a pinch of salt to taste. Also as I note above, if you want a thicker frosting but don’t want to keep adding more and more sweetness to it, you can use some cornstarch to get your desired consistency.
Final note – before frosting my cake, I leveled off the top of each layer to make sure they were flattened for easier building. This is optional.
Eat and enjoy!