Vegan Carrot Cake (On Finding Just The Right One: Cookbooks and Recipe Hunting)

Yesterday afternoon I was wandering through my kitchen in a sort of haze. I had no sense of direction, but I knew I wanted to get my hands on something. . . anything. Cookie? Cake? Coookie? Cake? (Unfortunately, it never seems to be a carrot stick or celery stick.) 

Most of you know my cookbook collection by now. I won't say I'm ready for a "support group" for my so-called facscination with cookbook-ing, but will say, I have absolutely NO excuse to not have something ready for dinner or something yummy for dessert based on what surrounds me in my kitchen! (And I have no immediate plans to get an E-Reader anytime soon.) I like my books in my hands, love the paper, love the black ink fonts, love the heft of them in my lap right before bed, love the stacks and stacks of them in my home, and at the library. (I am currently reading the BOOK. . . not e-book, The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman. It called to me from the New Book section at the library last week. I am such an easy mark.) I've got an old soul who has an old soul. Last year I read an obit (I like reading obits) where this woman, quite young, had passed away. Very sad. Very long obit. Within the fine print of her life was this: She had a cookbook collection that numbered over 10,000! Ten. Thousand. All I could think about were those cookbooks. Where'd they go? Who could have possibly loved to cook as much as she did. I still ponder about it today. Ten. Thousand. Cookbooks.

In my what-to-cook haze yesterday, I turned to my husband and said, Whatcha want for dessert tonight? Without missing a beat: "Spice cake. No, make that carrot spice cake." What?! No chocolate. I'm offended! Once again, a baker dying to bake is saved by the ravenous cravings within the belly of man.

Now I, like most of you, have about a hundred carrot cake recipes in this house. And I am sure I've already done a carrot cake post at some point. (I'm too lazy to go look right now.) What I wanted to do was share this carrot cake photo as soon as I could after hubby and I consumed half the cake ourselves last night while catching up on Grey's Anatomy DVDs. (I love Grey's!) It's our trade-off. I get things like Big Love and Grey's for the time I've spent watching his selections of Dr. Who and Battlestar Gallactica. (Not that there's anything WRONG with either of these wond-y sci fi shows, I quite enjoyed them both) but let's just say I am about as far away from that Dungeons and Dragons/Sci Fi persona as, well, as you'd probably imagine I'd be. Seriously. But Dr. Thyme knew this going into our almost fifteen year affair and as they say, the rest is history. (You could ask me anything about Cylons and I'd be all over it in a hot minute, trust me--those things scared me to death!) 

So I got busy looking for a truly lustful carrot cake recipe. I found exactly what I was looking for in the newest of my cookbook fascinations, Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe by Joanne Chang.

How can I describe the virtues of this cake? Best. Carrot. Cake. Ever. For starters, there's more carrots in here than a rabbit would eat in a year. I doubted the cake's worthiness upon adding the carrot saying to myself, "Well how on earth is this going to bake--there's too much carrot, not enough batter. . . it'll be a carrot PIE!" Oh, was I wrong. Joanne at Flour has made a very tested and baked and re-baked carrot cake into something I need test no more. This carrot cake, with my vegan adaptations, is truly what a carrot cake should be: carrot, a bit of cake, not too oily, not too sweet, topped with a not -too-confectioney-super-sweet frosting that hurts your teeth, but instead an oh-so-creamy cream cheese frosting. After my second piece (and my third piece this afternoon)--I am declaring this carrot cake one of my most favorite of all time. You are probably wondering: Alright already, give us the recipe! Well, I am going to let you see the vegan substitutions I've made and hope it may inspire you to give Joanne's recipe a go after seeing her cookbook for yourself. I'm not getting a dime to say this either!

I made the following vegan changes to the carrot cake recipe:

-used 6 tablespoons of whipped silken tofu in place of eggs

-used unsweetened soy milk mixed with a quarter teaspoon of apple cider vinegar for the buttermilk

-used tofu cream cheese in place of the regular cream cheese

-used unsalted vegetable margerine sticks in place of unsalted butter