Vegan Carrot Cake #325 (GO St. Louis Half Marathon Weekend Is Here!)

Okay, so maybe I don't have three hundred recipes for carrot cake, but it sure seems like I do. If you combine this with the recipes I have for carrot and pumpkin cake, well that could take us up into the four hundreds. Carrot cake, like brownies, are personal. There are the carrot cakes with enough vegetable oil to lube a small car, then there are the carrot cakes with just that: carrot. I find that no matter what recipe I pull out of my box of tricks, I require it to be covered in a thick layer of gooey buttercream frosting. No ifs, ands or buts.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a long gone St. Louis restaurant's carrot cake recipe. (I am forever cutting out recipes or printing them out. I am close to needing a new three-ring binder to hold my cut/print outs.) Why this recipe? This was a local place Mr. Thyme and I loved--before marriage. The Sunshine Inn. If I could describe it in one word, it would be: granola. I don't mean this in a bad way--but the feel and the food all lended nicely to folks kindly referred to as "granola" types. I was on the cusp of being granola at the time. Mr. Thyme is a child of the sixties--being granola is in his DNA. For me--a child of the seventies and "Madonna" eighties, I was not quite there--still never left home without a full can of hairspray tucked in my oversized handbag. Nonetheless, we loved this place. It had the best dinner rolls EVER. We'd even order the rolls with a sandwich (clearly before the ills of carbs had reached a fevered pitch).


I have cake cravings like some folks have chocolate cravings. I lean more towards the pastry--always. In fact, I would have much rather preferred to be given pieces of cake as a reward when I was a kid. However, any cake I had mostly came from crinkly, plastic-wrapped, diabetic coma-inducing, frosting-stuffed concoctions. You know exactly what I'm talking about.

Baking a cake was all I could think about by Saturday night--we had worked so hard screening in the porch, I felt nothing could quite satisfy our hunger more than cake. However, given our home improvement distraction, I was wanting "easy". Carrot cakes don't typically fall into this category in my book--especially when it requires "shredding" of vegetables. But shred I did.

I will be honest with you all and state for the record, I felt I had overcooked this cake a tad. By a tad I mean, I was out of the room when the timer went off on the oven. Julia Childs was forever saying that, When you smell the cake, cookies, (whatever)--they are ready to come out of the oven. I smelled my cake all right, I just smelled some "burnt" cake, too. I quickly yanked that pan from the oven and sat it on a cooling rack. I was determined to have cake--but not this evening as it was already nearly eight--no way would I be able to frost a cooled cake before bed. To take down the heat from the cake, I blew on the baking pan, I even considered plunging the hot pan into the fridge. There is nothing worse than an overdone cake in my opinion. Time would tell. The next day--(day three of screening in the porch), I blended my buttercream frosting stuffs for icing the cake. Thickness counts--this was a 9x13 cake, tons of frosting was necessary. That evening for dessert  Mr. Thyme and I took our first bite. I was like, Crap! This is NOT what I wanted--it seems dry. Mr. Thyme was all like, Mmmm, tastes good to me. (Of course, he was not fully recovered from our construction labor of the day--so I thought his taste buds must have been in underdrive.)

If I have a cake that doesn't work out--I will immediately pitch it. Immediately. I am no fan of mulling over anything like a bunch of flour and stuff that doesn't turn out right. If I don't like it--it's gone. (The same holds true for poorly performing house plants--nothing irritates me more--out they go if they can't cut it in this house--call me crass, but that is way the cookie crumbles around here.) Given Mr. Thyme's "Mmmm" comment, I thought I might want to wait. Wait for the cake to sit. As you know, a cake gets moister the longer it sits (especially when it's frosted).

Last night was day four of the carrot cake--while I watched the Idol results. Mike, dude got a save--whew. While I don't think he has a chance to win, he does have some great pipes. I agree with the Idol Chatter blogger who believes--probably like the rest of the grown-up world--that there is this Jonas Brothers tweenie crowd with texting and phone fingers that are going to ruin the watchability of this show for the rest of us if some teenager wins. And might I add--since we 'grown-ups' have the spending capital in our wallets to support these tweens, perhaps a little come to Jesus moment with the kiddos is in order: parents! I say they make a new low-age cut off--like twenty. That goofy, big-eyed Tim--he should have gone home. Period. The Tuesday night show was superb--didgeridoo and bag pipes. Lee and Crystal rocked! I loved the bag pipes and the kilt--what a scream! I know I will be considered a heretic for saying this--but I am not a huge Beatles fan. YIKES! (Some of their music works for me, some does not and I think Sir Paul is a bit full of himself. I think I am the elephant in the room on that one--I believe there are legions of other folks like me but are unwilling to step forward on this. I still want Steve Perry to perform and mentor.) 

Back to cake. I have to say, this recipe worked. It can officially find a permanent home in my carrot cake rotation. I will make special note of its needing "careful" watching for proper removal from the oven next time. What I love about this recipe is not only its nostalgic meaning for us as a couple, but for its lack of sugar in the recipe--it is sweetened instead with agave syrup (my change as the original recipe calls for honey) and molasses. No sugar whatsoever in this recipe. Also, it incorporates whole wheat flour. As for the seasonings--the usual suspects are here: cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. I added ginger to mine. You could even add a couple tablespoons of chopped crystallized ginger and I think you would be quite pleased.

The one discouraging part was the "four eggs" part of the recipe. Damn those eggs. To veganize this--I used Ener-G Egg Replacer for each egg. I was concerned about this much Egg Replacer and may use 1/4 cup of silken tofu per egg in my next attempt. Instead of walnuts, I used pecans. I also used golden raisins vs. regular. For the frosting--to veganize--use tofu cream cheese and vegan butter and a teaspoon of vanilla extract and about three cups of powdered sugar.. Forget about their frosting recipe calling for 1 1/2 cups of honey. I was not in the mood for an agave-liquid-heavy frosting. I wanted the straight buttercream. Just use your basic vegan buttercream frosting recipe. Make sure you put it on thick! Here is a link to the Sunshine Inn's Carrot Cake recipe. Enjoy!

*For those keeping count--we are three days away from the GO St. Louis Half Marathon on Sunday. I have been lax in my running this week--but felt I have more than made up for it in grit-iron sweat and muscle work. Mowing my yard in itself is like a five mile run--seriously. I am nervous. I will remain nervous. I pick up my packet and my bib number tomorrow. I have on-again and off-again feelings about running in this--there are over 16,000 folks participating! My crowd phobia will be kicked into high gear. I ran the first marathon in St. Louis ten years ago when only 1,200 runners participated. I finished in less than four hours. I would love to finish the half in less than 2:45. I am like, well, if I wake up with the energy to tackle this--wonderful. If my almost fifty self wakes up feeling almost fifty--then I have to really muster the courage to get to the starting line and pray for a finish time less than three hours. Surely I can do that! Surely.