52 Weeks of Baking: Week 11 - Orange "Carrot" Cake

I pinned this recipe ages ago. I love oranges and I love carrot cake and I love chocolate (duh). I haven't made a full CAKE in a long time so I decided to give veganizing this recipe a go, but not wanting a full 3 layer crazy cake, I cut it in half.

It's not pretty. Like... not pretty.

You're bound to have some failure once in a while. What wasn't a failure? The flavour. It's not at all carroty because the orange takes over, so while there's carrot in there it's not at all what I would consider carrot cake; it still tastes pretty fab because, as I mentioned, I love oranges.

I could eat a bowl of them as is.

Next time I would also re-do this at 2/3 the recipe instead of half, or maybe baking it in 2 8" cake plates or something, instead of 1 angel food cake pan and then slicing it in half. The halves were super delicate because the thing was really moist and may have split apart a bit when I was moving them onto a plate. Ah well. Such is life. Lesson learned. All that stuff.

Orange Carrot Cake

1/2 c milk
1/2 tsp cider vinegar
4 tbsp applesauce
finely grated rind of half an orange
2/3 c oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 c flour
1 c + 2 tbsp sugar (although honestly, you can probably omit the 2 tbsp. The cake is pretty sweet.)
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 c shredded coconut
1 c shredded carrot
2/3 c finely chopped mandarin orange sections

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a pan or 2 . I used an angel food cake pan (?). Mix the milk and vinegar and set aside.

In a largeish bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, powder, soda, salt and coconut. Pour in the milk, applesauce, orange rind, oil and vanilla. Stir until relatively well mixed, though the occasional lump isn't the end of the world. Fold in the carrot and oranges.

Pour into your pan. If you are using one pan, it took my cake 50 minutes to bake; I tested at 35 and it was still straight up batter in the middle. If you are using 2 pans definitely start at 30 minutes instead.

Remove from oven, let cool on a rack in the pan(s) for a minute or two before turning the cake out onto the rack and cooling the rest of the way.

Cream Cheese Filling

3/4 of a container of tofutti 'cream cheese' at room temperature
1/4 c marmalade
1/2 c icing sugar

Beat the tofutti until fluffy; add in the marmalade and sugar and beat until well combined. It'll be pretty soft.

Slice your cake into 2 layers if you used one pan, and put the icing on one side and then top with the other.

Chocolate Ganache

2/3 c silk creamer
8 oz chocolate, chopped

Bring the silk up to a near simmer in a small pot; add the chocolate, turn the heat off and stir until the chocolate is melted and it's all smooth and lovely. Once it's cool and thick, pour it over the cake and spread it around all pretty-like.