Carrot Cake with "Cream Cheese" Icing


Mmmmm, carrot cake. Who doesn't love carrot cake?  This is a deliciously moist cake - lots of carrots, rasins, walnuts and icing, yum!  If you don't want as much icing as the above photo, just make half the recipe, or make the whole recipe and save the remainder for some cupcakes or something else tasty.

cake ingredients:

  • 3 cups flour (I use 1/2 whole spelt flour, 1/2 white flour)
  • 1 1/2 cups organic cane sugar
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum (can omit if you don't have it)
  • 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil of your choice
  • 1 cup soy, rice, or almond milk (plain or vanilla)
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 cups finely grated carrots
  • 3/4 cup walnuts, chopped
  • 3/4 cup rasins
frosting ingredients:
  • 1/4 cup Earth Balance Buttery Spread
  • 8 oz vegan cream cheese
  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • optional: 1 tsp lemon or vanilla extract
method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Line a 12" x 9" loaf pan with parchment paper, or grease the pan with some Earth Balance

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients for the cake and combine well.

In a medium bowl, combine the wet ingredients for the cake and mix well.

Make a hollow in the dry ingredients and pour the wet inside, mix gently with a large spoon.  Fold in carrots, rasins, and walnuts.

Pour batter in to the prepared tin and bake 50 - 55 minutes, or until cake gently springs back when touched in the center. 

Allow cake to cool on a wire rack before frosting.

To prepare the frosting, combine frosting ingredients in a bowl and mix with a beater.  Spread on cake and enjoy!



Lemon Squares


If lemon squares are your deal, then this is the recipe for you.  I found it on the Vegweb site five years ago, added it to my recipe box, and then never made it until today!  And me being a total lemon square fiend, I really have no clue how this happened.  Well, there's no looking back after today, that's for sure.  And best of all, this recipe whips together in less than 20 minutes, how's that, eh? (Okay, now you know I'm Canadian...)

ingredients:

crust:
  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 5 tablespoons (or 1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp) Earth Balance Buttery Spread
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
filling:
  • 3 egg equivalents, prepared (all I had in the house was cornstarch, so I did 6 Tbsp with equal parts water)
  • 2 1/2 - 3 lemons, juiced and zested
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 3 Tbsp all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp lemon extract if you have it, you can omit this if you don't have it
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/8 tsp salt
method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Line an 8" x 8" pan with parchment paper, right up the vertical sides as well.  This makes removal of the squares so much easier. 

In a bowl combine the crust ingredients and press into the prepared pan. Bake for 15 minutes.

While the crust is baking, prepare the egg replacer, whip it up a bit and add the remaining ingredients, mixing together really well.

Pour over baked crust, pop in the oven and bake 20 - 25 minutes, or until somewhat set.  

Allow to cool, preferably in the fridge, before cutting.



Recipe from vegweb



Zombie Fingers (Mozzarella Sticks)


These mozzarella sticks (aka 'Zombie Fingers' - keep reading!) made with Daiya vegan cheese are truly out of this world.

I came across the recipe on Daiya Foods' You Tube channel - its one of the entries to their 'Get Cooking' contest where the prize is a much coveted iPad.  The video is made by 'The Vegan Zombie', a highly entertaining vegan cook that makes insane food and really great videos.  In my humble opinion, he is by far the front runner in the competition thus far; the recipe consists of pretty much entirely Daiya cheese, its both super easy & fun to make, is insanely, stupidly, disgustingly good, and the video itself is really well made and fun to watch.

Enough is enough! This evening I made these mozzarella sticks and Andre and I had to really exercise some serious control not to eat the whole shebang. Wow, are these beauties ever tasty.

I don't need to print out the recipe, all you have to do is watch the video a couple times and you'll have it committed to memory.  Like I said earlier, very easy to make.

Watch the video, link over to You Tube if you want to give it a thumbs up or comment, and make yourself some Zombie Fingers!!