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.

Salty Oaty Cookies

Last night I had been intending to make a batch of Christmas cookies, but then got distracted by pinterest and these cookies. The cookies have no eggs or dairy in them, and a simple sub of Earth Balance for the butter made them vegan, which is lovely. Sometimes I just want to think about what to sub. The filling calls for 2 tbsp milk, for which I subbed almond milk, as always, and again Earth Balance for the butter.

You could eat them without filling, too.

The ganache was a bit too soft for my liking and I think next time I would probably go with a different recipe, though I have to admit that I did really like the flavour having used cocoa powder instead of melted chocolate like most ganaches call for.

The saltiness is delicious. I used Murray River flakes; I would definitely recommend going the flake route vs the chunky sea salt route. Chunky sea salt might over do it even if you only sprinkle on a couple of grains.

You probably could actually make these as Christmas cookies; I imagine the filling would freeze and thaw just fine. I might actually toss one in a freezer bag and see what happens.

Or I might just eat them all with coffee or tea over the course of this week.

Pumpkin Mac N Cheeze

I wanted something to do with the half can of pumpkin left over from making the baked pumpkin oatmeal. Fortunately, I had pinned a (non vegan) pumpkin mac n cheese. This need to finish the pumpkin has also coincided with some awful teething from Dash, who can't eat anything less soft than macaroni. Perfect marriage of circumstances.

I worked mainly by feel here; mostly I was influenced by OhSheGlow's mac n cheeze, which I didn't realize till after I had already made this. It was the most recent mac n cheeze I've made though, so that makes sense.

Pumpkin Mac N Cheeze

1 box penne, cooked (or whatever pasta you like)

1/2 c cashews, soaked for as long as you've got. Mine were soaked for 4 hours.
2 cloves garlic (I will probably add more next time, but we like a lot of garlic)
1/2 can pumpkin - I would guess around 1 1/3 c.
here's where it gets sketchy because I stopped measuring
dijon mustard (a couple of tsp)
3 half handfuls nutritional yeast
some olive oil (probably 2 tbsp)
some almond milk (1/4 - 1/2 c)
some salt (1 or 2 tsp?)
some veg broth (around 1/4 or 1/2 c as well)
juice of half a lemon

Topping

2 tbsp Earth Balance
2 tbsp horseradish
1 c panko crumbs

Preheat to 350.

Throw everything but the penne into a food processor and process until totally smooth, scraping down the sides every once in a while. Pour over the cooked penne, mix well, and dump into a large baking pan that has been sprayed with cooking oil or otherwise destickified.

Melt the earth balance, stir in the horseradish, then drizzle over the bread crumbs. Spread evenly over the macaroni and then toss it in the oven for about 30 minutes.

Dash's plate. He ate this and then another helping. Yum!

Enjoy!

ps this was 100% approved of by our (admittedly not at all picky) toddler. "How's your food Dash?" "Mmm! Delicious, mommy!"

Baked Pumpkin Oatmeal

'tis the season of all things pumpkin. You know this because there was a riot in the streets when Starbucks brought the pumpkin spice latte out a few weeks ago.

Okay, so maybe there was no riot. But if the fact that it's out doesn't mean anything to you, a quick browse around Pinterest Food & Drink sections will certainly clue you in. Pumpkin goes in / with everything. Donuts. Mac n cheese (I will be doing this later this week hopefully...). Baked oatmeal. Not just for pie anymore!

I pinned a non-vegan pumpkin baked oatmeal with the intention of veganizing it, so here we are. I just googled 'freezing baked oatmeal' and looks like that should work, so I might make another batch, cut it into squares and freeze it as part of the freezer meals for when Lip comes.

Pumpkin Pie Baked Oatmeal

1 1/4 c pumpkin puree
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 c coconut yogurt (vanilla flavour)
2 tbsp ground flax
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 c almond milk (I actually had to top up the almond milk with a bit of Silk Creamer, maybe 1/4 c, because I was too lazy to open a new container when I ran out at 1 1/4 c)
2 1/2 c oats

Preheat the oven to 350. Spray an 8x8 or 9x9 pan with cooking spray of some variety.

Mix everything but the oats together until smooth; then stir in the oats, toss it all into your pan, and bake for 30 minutes covered in foil. The original says to bake for 15 more uncovered, but I ended up doing a whole 'nother half hour uncovered to get it actually baked. Remove.

Before baking.

I let it cool for 10 minutes before slicing into it, putting it into my bowl and drizzling it with maple syrup and vanilla Silk creamer.

Out of the oven

It was super delicious. I would probably add more spices next time; I think more cinnamon and ginger would have been great. I don't actually know what 'pumpkin pie spice' is so I was just making things up as I went along anyway. You can do whatever you like!

Ready to be eaten!

Gooey Carrot Cupcakes with Cinnamon Icing

These are made of win. I know that phrase is outdated and stuff, but it's true. I saw the original cake recipe on pinterest and knew I had to veganize it. And possibly make it into cupcakes, because who eats cake these days? Cupcakes are easier to share.

The recipe calls for a sauce thing to be poured over the cake while still hot; I decided to pour on some of the remains of the vegan sweetened condensed milk I made last week for Dash's cupcake icing instead, because I already had that made and am lazy.

Carrot Cupcakes

2 c shredded carrot
3/4 c shredded, sweetened, toasted coconut
1/2 c chopped pecans
1 c crushed pineapple in juice
1 c milk (as always I used almond)
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 c sugar
3/4 c oil
2 c flour
2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1/2 c sweetened condensed milk

Preheat the oven to 350. This recipe made 24 cupcakes, so either halve it and make 12 or line 2 cupcake tins with paper liners.

Shredded carrot and coconut

Mix the milk and vinegar in a large bowl and set aside for a few minutes to curdle.  Meanwhile sift together the flour through salt in a smaller bowl. Then, to the milk, add the vanilla, oil and sugar and whisk well until combined. Add the dry ingredients and stir until just combined; fold in the remaining ingredients. Scoop into the muffin tin; they will be pretty darn full - 3/4 or so. Bake for 20 -22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

You can probably just let them cool on a rack and then frost and eat, but if you want to go the 'gooey' route, poke them several times each, while still warm, with something about chopstick size. I used a chopstick. Then pour sweetened condensed milk over the cupcakes, into the holes, by the teaspoonful. Allow to cool the rest of the way on racks.

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

1 1/2 c cream cheese, softened (I used tofutti, which I like better than most other brands I've tried)
1/2 c Earth Balance, softened
2 tsp brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
4 c icing sugar

Cream together the Earth Balance and cream cheese. Add the brown sugar and cinnamon, then add the icing sugar by the cupful and mixing to incorporate each cup entirely before adding the next. Spread onto cupcakes. Mine was too soft to pipe nicely and hold a shape, but you can try or maybe add more icing sugar to see if that makes it more solid. It's freaking delicious this way though so I'd say just stick with it.

Yum.