Carrot Cake

I don’t know why springtime and Easter scream “carrot cake” to me. Maybe it’s the association between bunnies and carrots? Nevertheless, carrot cake ranks in my top 5 favorite desserts. Banana cake is my all time fav, but that’s a different recipe for another day. I don’t usually tell people this is a plant based or vegan cake because when they hear that, they assume it’s going to be dry and have no flavor and this cake is anything but that! You can easily make this gluten free with all oat flour or a mixture of flours, I’ve done it and it comes out well but I like the texture of this one a little better. You can add 1/2-1 cup of raisins if you’d like. I don’t. For me, raisins belong in oatmeal cookies and that’s about it. I hope you love it and/or it brings back happy memories….carrot cake was all rage in the ‘70’s & ‘80’s!

2 cups shredded carrots

1/2 cup shredded coconut

1 cup drained crushed pineapple (save the juice)

1 cup nuts (walnuts or pecans)

1 cup unbleached flour 

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup oat flour 

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1 teaspoon baking soda 

2 teaspoon baking powder 

1 teaspoon salt 

1 cup organic sugar or coconut sugar 

1 cup organic brown sugar

3 flax ‘eggs’ 

1/2 cup avocado oil or melted coconut oil

1/2 cup applesauce

1 tsp orange zest (optional)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract 

2 cups shredded carrots 

1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

For the frosting:

1 cup (8 ounces) vegan cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup vegan butter, room temperature

4 cups powdered sugar, (approximately, you may need a bit less or a bit more depending on humidity, altitude & temperature)

1 tsp vanilla extract

a pinch of salt

a pinch of orange rind (optional)

Drained pineapple juice

Garnish with chopped nuts and carrot ribbons or shredded carrots, if desired

Directions for the frosting:

Beat the butter (room temperature) until creamy. Add the plant based cream cheese (Toffuti, Miyoko’s, Kitehill or Trader Joe’s brands are all good), add the vanilla extract and orange zest (optional). Beat until creamed with the butter. Add the powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, until you have the desired consistency, it it’s too thick add some the drained pineapple juice 1 tsp at a time, if it’s too thin add a bit more powdered sugar. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Directions for the cake:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease two 9 inch cake pans (I use coconut oil spray) or 24 muffin tins 

For the flax ‘eggs’ use 1 Tbsp flax meal and 3 Tbsp of water for each ‘egg’ (you can grind the seeds in a food processor). You can also use an egg replacer or chia ‘eggs’. Mix the flax and water and set aside until it’s a gelatinous texture.

In large bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder and salt, mix well. In separate bowl, combine sugar and flax ‘eggs’ beat until well blended. Add oil and vanilla; beat until combined. Stir in carrots. Add flour mixture; stir just until moistened. Pour evenly into cake pans or muffin tins, with muffin liners. Bake in preheated oven for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. For muffins bake 20-22 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes.

Remove cake from pans; cool completely on wire rack, frost, sprinkle with nuts and ribbons of carrots if desired and, Enjoy!

Beauty will Save the World

I wrote this on Good Friday and I’m not sure why it didn’t get posted here, so here it is now. Not a whole lot has changed here in So Cal, the last 10 days except that it feels like we’ve skipped over spring and gone straight to summer.

Beauty

Spring

Community

Hope

Celebration 

Those are the words I’d typically use to describe this time of year. Here in Southern California it’s been mostly cold and rainy the last 3 weeks. Between the rain and self quarantining it feels like spring has been cancelled. I told my mom the other day I was beginning to feel like I was in Narnia when it was always winter but never Christmas.

Dostoevsky said “beauty will save the world”.  

This week IQAir said that Los Angeles has the cleanest air in the world. What?! How is that possible??  Mother Nature, God, Beauty, the universe, a power greater than yourself...whatever you want to call it is repairing itself from the damage humanity has done to Earth. We have not been good stewards. I’ve seen memes saying “doesn’t it feel like Mother Nature has sent us all to our rooms?” And I as used to say to my kids “you know better, now go think about what you’ve done and don’t come out until you’re ready to behave”.

This pandemic has highlighted social inequality. It’s also shined a light on people who are often marginalized. The person that works at the gas station, the checker at the grocery store, the truck driver, the people that work in the fields to pick the food we buy, the person at the fast food restaurant, the driver and the delivery person. They are all now considered “essential workers”, just like first responders, doctors and nurses. Guess what?! They were always essential! They are all what’s keeping everything going right now. 

I keep seeing “we’re all in this together”, “you’re not alone” but sometimes it sure feels like it. This week is Passover, today is Good Friday and Ramadan starts in a couple of weeks, these are Holy, contemplative, reflective times. This morning I was reading along and read the word atonement. Then I saw this: “at-one-ment”. Which means to be at one with, my anxiety was replaced with a calm. This is where we are all supposed to be.

Going forward things need to be different. When we know different we can do different. We now know better. We’ve seen gratitude and respect shown to people we used to overlook. We’ve seeing people taking care of each other, we’ve been present with our loved ones. And we are all in this together because there is no difference, there is no space, we are at one we just didn’t realize it before. Even though it feels like winter, winter doesn’t last forever. Spring will come, we will emerge from our cocoons like this beautiful Monarch. There will be celebrations, hope is not lost, there will be beauty from ashes and like a Phoenix we will rise. 

Happy Passover ✡️ Happy Easter ✝️ Aslan is on the move 🦁