The only requests from my friends for their wedding carrot cakes were: no fruit, and include nuts. I knew I had to start with test cakes.
The first recipe I tested was from America's Test Kitchen. It was tasty but strangely light and fluffy and not what I wanted at all. When I think of carrot cake I think of dense, sticky, rich. Now I have to wonder about those folks over at America's Test Kitchen. Can I even trust them anymore? With this cake I scrubbed the carrots but didn't peel them. Two days later little green flecks appeared in the cake. Lesson learned. Peel yer carrots.
I started working the vegan angle instead and tried a vegan carrot cake recipe from the Whole Foods app on my iPhone. It was well received but shredded immediately upon frosting. I liked the strong spices though.
I decided to come up with my own, taking what I liked from each recipe. To make the cake darker I used brown sugar instead of white, and I added some whole wheat flour as well as some cocoa, a trick I learned from baking pumpernickel bread. To make it moist I added oat milk and applesauce. I used more carrots than either of the other recipes also. This version was much closer to what I wanted. I was running out of testing time so I decided to stick with it.
To make it vegan I used egg replacer and fiddled with the liquids. The frosting was the challenge here. I never quite perfected it. I first tried Vegan Gourmet brand vegan cream cheese: disgusting. I threw it in the trash. I almost gave up right there but Google convinced me to try Tofutti "Better than cream cheese" and it worked fine. I haven't figured out the right vegan margarine though. I used what we had in the fridge, Earth Balance, which tastes great on our bread but in the frosting had this kind of chemically fragrance and aftertaste. A more subtle margarine would be better. This frosting also ended up kind of watery, which was not a tragedy but definitely skip the lemon juice for this one or you'll have a runny mess. The regular cream cheese frosting was amazing and I ate about a cup of it that weekend. I'm gonna tell myself that's ok because I'm still breastfeeding.
As I was mixing up a double batch of cake mix in my soup pot (since I didn't have any bowls big enough!) I had to laugh at myself. This whole process certainly made me a better baker. I now understand why we have cooking spray and parchment paper. And somehow, despite the fact that I have eaten pounds of this carrot cake in the past month, I still want to have more of it. At the wedding the two cakes were totally gone by the end of the night. The bride's son even asked me to make a carrot cake for his birthday next month. So it all worked out!
These pictures from the wedding should tell you that the carrot cakes were hardly a blip on the radar. It was a beautiful weekend. It was a wedding that made me realize these are the moments we will look back on when we are old, the stories we will tell. It was a wedding that made me feel more in love with my husband. And how about those outfits? The bride is such an amazing seamstress. She made her dress, the groom's outfit, the officiant's outfit and her kids' outfits too! I get proud when I embellish a kitchen towel and she's designing formal wear. So humbling! And now, I give you the cakes.
Carrot Cake
1.5 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
1 pinch ground cloves
3 eggs
2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup canola or vegetable oil
1/2 cup oat milk (or plain milk I imagine would work fine)
3.5 cups shredded carrots
1 cup chopped walnuts
Frosting
8 oz. package of cream cheese
5 Tbsp. butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp lemon juice
Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 9x12 cake pan with non-stick cooking spray and line with parchment paper. Mix flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa and spices in a bowl. In a separate large bowl, mix eggs, brown sugar, applesauce, oil and oat milk until well blended. Add shredded carrots to wet ingredients. Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients, stirring until mostly combined. Add walnuts and mix just until combined. Don't over mix. Pour into baking pan. Bake for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a rack. To make frosting, mix butter and cream cheese until well blended. Add vanilla and lemon juice. Add powdered sugar. Frost cake when cool.
Vegan Carrot Cake
1.5 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
1 pinch ground cloves
2 Tbsp egg replacer
2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup canola or vegetable oil
3/4 cup oat milk (or rice or soy milk)
3.5 cups shredded carrots
1 cup chopped walnuts
Frosting
8 oz. container Tofutti "better than cream cheese"
5 Tbsp. vegan non-hydrogenated margarine
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 9x12 cake pan with non-stick cooking spray and line with parchment paper. Mix flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa, egg replacer and spices in a bowl. In a separate large bowl, mix brown sugar, applesauce, oil and oat milk until well blended. Add shredded carrots to wet ingredients. Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients, stirring until mostly combined. Add walnuts and mix just until combined. Don't over mix. Pour into baking pan. Bake for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a rack. To make frosting, mix margarine and cream cheese until well blended. Add vanilla. Add powdered sugar. Frost cake when cool.
