Gooey Carrot Apple Ginger Cake

Sticky, gooey carrot cake and spicy, garlic-leek soda bread for a rainy winter's eve.

I get these huge carrots in my veggie box.  They’re not great for slicing and eating raw – a bit woody.  They don’t even deliver a great taste when cooked, so I thought I’d try them in a carrot cake. I’ve been wanting to try vegan baking, but as I was experimenting with the basic recipe, I chickened-out and after 1 spoonful of egg-replacer, went back to eggs.
I also made the soda bread, experimenting with additions to add flavour and texture. Recipe follows cake.

The Cake

Start with Wet Ingredients

• 1 cup apple sauce.  Cut up about 6 small to medium-sized apples and put to cook down with a little water.

• While that’s cooking, grate the carrots to make 3 cups densely packed grated carrot.
• Add to that:
• 2 inches grated stem ginger (makes about 2 heaping dessert spoonfuls)
• 2 heaping dessert spoons black treacle
• 2 heaping dessert spoons golden syrup
• 2 large eggs

Sift together the Dry Ingredients

Runny icing recipe follows after spicy, garlic-leek soda bread!

• 2 cups flour
• 2 rounded teaspoons baking soda
• 1 heaping teaspoon egg replacer
• 1 heaping tsp garam masala

Then rub in

• 1/3 cup margarine cut into cubes

And toss with

• 1 cup raisins

By now the apples should be ready.  They should be a dry stew, rather than wet.  You don’t want too much water as you have the eggs and treacle.  Measure it out.  You need about a cup.

 

Mix the apples into the wet ingredients, then pour that into the dry ingredients and mix by hand until all the flour is mixed in, and then mix it a bit more.  (I found a pocket of flour embedded on the spoon when I poured mine into the pan, so you really need to mix it, but don’t use an electric mixer.)

Bake in 170C for 40 minutes, then reduce temperature to 150C and cook until a toothpick inserted in centre comes out dry.

The cake is dense, wet and heavy.  Not too much sugar, so a decent snack or dessert after a light meal, such as soup.  The icing (recipe follows) is really the only decadent element – and, oh go on – now and then won’t hurt!

Cream cheese and yoghurt runny icing is spiced up with slivered ginger and grated orange rind.

The soda bread is pretty simple:

• Rub 1/4 cup margarine into 1.5 cups flour, sifted together with
•  2 teaspoons soda
• and 2/3 tsp cream of tartar.
• Toss in your chosen seasoning. For this loaf, I added
• a clove of garlic (slivered)
• about and inch and a half of slivered leek
• and a sprinkle of dried, hot red chilis.
• Toss in 1/4 cup milk (add gradually, you don’t want it too wet, and definitely not runny!)
• Knead a little, then press out on a board.
  

  I cooked this loaf in a small pyrex dish. It was delicious! The hot chili certainly added a kick and the garlic and leek blended beautifully. Delicious served with left-over beany tomato soup. I even had some slathered with the extremely runny cream cheese icing made for the cake!

Deliciously Decadent, Runny Cream Cheese Icing

Mix together in a bowl:

• 150 grams low-fat cream cheese
• 200 grams plain yoghurt
• About a tablespoon grated ginger and the same of grated orange rind.
• Add 500 grams royal icing
• Beat with hand-held mixer for 5 minutes
  

  My mixer burned out after 3, so I have no idea what would have happened had I whipped it for 5 minutes! It’s supposed to form peaks.  I used royal icing sugar, bought by mistake.

I drizzled it over the cake and put the rest aside in a container and used it as a sauce. It was deliciously decadent and only lasted about 48 hours!  Oh, I’ve lost 6 kilo.  Oh well, it’s only now and then.