vegan carrot cake cookies

I write this in the early evening, as the light begins to fade and a spring rainshower beats a steady drumbeat on the cobbles of the courtyard below. Pigeons are taking shelter under windowsills and cooing softly to each other, as they seem to do each morning and evening at this time of year. A few pastel-coloured candles are flickering in my fireplace, and vases of fresh-cut flowers are balanced all over the room. It was my birthday recently, and my generous friends obliged me to buy several new vases with their kind bouquets, such that my apartment resembles a florist’s.

I have come to appreciate having a spring birthday in recent years. To be reminded, even as I grow older, that life is cyclical as well as linear, and seasons of new growth and new life are not a one-off event. Year after year the daffodils push up through the ground no matter how cold the winter has been. The trees begin to bud afresh, because they cannot help but do so. We never know quite when it will be, but spring always comes.

I have many thoughts about turning 30, some good and some bad, and perhaps I’ll share that in more detail some other time. What I will say is that it appears, more than any other age I’ve reached, the point at which we’re most encouraged to look around and compare where we are to where our younger selves thought we would be, as well as where other people are at and how they are doing in comparison. I do not find either of these metrics to be helpful.

Becuase overall, in all my reflections, what I keep returning to this: of all the lives I could have lived, I would still choose this one. I don’t mean that it’s perfect (nothing is), but at some point, if what I have is not enough — listening to the spring rain, watching the light fade, being surrounded by flowers given to me by people I love and who love me back. The joy of sharing homemade cookies with friends, of pouring out my heart to them over a Friday night glass of wine, of having a job I don’t always love but don’t always hate either, of the first coffee of the year drunk outside in the sun, of laughing uncontrollably about something stupid with colleagues, of witnessing daily the unfolding beauty that is Paris in springtime — then nothing ever will be.

I had vaguely planned a carrot cake for a birthday cake, it being an obvious choice for a spring cake for me. But iced cake doesn’t travel well on a crowded metro so I reinvented them as cookies. Then in the end I ate so much sugar over that weekend (thanks again to the generosity of friends) that I froze the cookies instead, and I’ll eat them steadily over the next few weeks, even after the flowers wilt and die and the pastel candles burn to stumps.

Makes c. 12-15 cookies

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup vegan butter, melted

• 3/4 cup light soft brown sugar

• 3 tbsp aquafaba

• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

• 1/4 tsp ground cardamom

• 1/4 tsp ground mixed spice

• 1/2 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

• 1/4 tsp sea salt flakes

• 1 cup plain flour

• 1 cup oats

• 1/2 cup grated carrot

• 1/2 cup raisins

• 1/2 cup pecans, roughly chopped

Method

1. Whisk together the melted butter and brown sugar so that the sugar dissolves, then stir in the aquafaba, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, mixed spice, and salt.

2. Sieve in the plain flour, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder and stir to combine. Lastly, stir in the oats, grated carrot, raisins and chopped pecans and ensure everything is well mixed.

3. Place the bowl of cookie dough in the fridge and leave to chill for at least 30 minutes. This is essential to allow the butter to harden, or it will melt too fast in the oven and the cookies will spread too much.

4. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

5. Scoop balls of dough out onto a greased and lined baking sheet using an ice cream scoop. Space the balls of dough quite far apart to give them space to expand. I got about 13 out of mine.

6. Bake for around 15 minutes, or until browned around the edges. You need to check from around the 13 minute mark. Leave to cool completely before consuming, as they continue to cook and solidify as they cool.