• Pre heat your oven to 320°F (160°C) (fan forced) . Grease a line a spring form cake tin, 7" x 2.5" (18cm x 6.5cm) with baking paper.
• Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger to a bowl. Mix well.
• Roughly chop the pecans. Grate the carrots using the coarse side of a box grater.
• Add the pecans and carrots to the flour mix and mix well.
• In a separate bowl add the brown sugar, oil, vanilla and apple sauce. Mix well.
• Working quickly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Mix the cake batter lightly until just combined. Try to make sure there are no unmixed flour streaks but do not over mix.
• NB the cake batter will be quite dry and lumpy, This is normal.
• Tip the batter into the tin and smooth down.
• Bake for one hour and ten minutes or until cake is golden brown and a fine skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
• Allow the cake to cool completely before removing it from the pan.

Optional vegan lemon buttercream

• Sift the icing sugar into a bowl.
• Add the margarine and lemon juice.
• Beat on medium with electric hand beaters or in a stand mix until light and fluffy.
• Frost the cooled cake and decorate with whole pecans. Lovely with some freshly grated lemon zest over the top to!