One Carrot Cake, three Toppings

I'm a cake-eater. I will go crazy for cake and pie, but even more for baking them. Most of the time I start baking because I have some leftover ingredients from other recipes. Baking a strawberry rhubarb pie after making a rhubarb syrup. Making an apple strawberry crumble pie with some leftover strawberries. But there is only one cake that will never ask for a trip to the market, because all the ingredients I already have in my pantry, carrot cake. Because I make it so often I started playing around with the ingredients, adding more spices, leaving out others. Now I have a perfect recipe, but how to top it of? Of course you have the traditional cream cheese frosting. But after a while you want more. So I wrote down some of my ideas on topping of the old well-known carrot cake.

Carrot cake
140 ml of sunflower or canola oil
200 gr of dark caster sugar
2 eggs
300 gr of grated carrot
100 gr of nuts, like walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, almonds, chopped or whole
1 tablespoon of baking powder
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of nutmeg
2-3 tablespoons of desiccated coconut
175 gr of selfraising flour
Pinch of salt

Heat the oven to 150 C/ 300 F. Mix together the oil, sugar and eggs until a fluffy like mixture. Fold in the carrot, nuts, spices, baking powder and coconut. Sieve the flour over the mixture, add a pinch of salt and fold together. Grease a baking tin or line with baking paper. I used a 30cm x 30cm square tin, but a round 22 cm-24cm tin will also be fine. Now pour the mixture into the tin and place in the middle of the preheated oven. Bake the carrot cake for 1 hour. Then let it rest in the tin for at least an hour.

Chocolate covered Carrot cake
The first time I came around a recipe for chocolate on carrot cake I was very disappointed.  The recipe asked for a pre-made chocolate icing. It gave me the chills. Around a year ago, one of my brothers friends had a birthday cake covered with pre-made pink chocolate icing. I refused to eat it then, mostly because of the artificial color. So why should I use it myself? Stubborn as I am, I just used chocolate.

Note: Because the chocolate becomes hard again you can have a different carrot cake experience. Normally the topping will make sure you have something to make the cake taste even more moist. If you find the chocolate covered carrot cake to dry there is just one solution. My little brother came up with the idea of serving the carrot cake with some vanilla ice cream. I have to say, my little brother is a champ in tastes and yummy goodness so I would take his advice!

100 gr of dark chocolate
50 gr of white chocolate

When the carrot cake is still cooling down you can start on melting the chocolate. I always melt it au bain-marie. Au bain-marie is just a bowl covering a pan with boiling or boiled water. In that way the chocolate melts because of the heat from the steam. The chocolate is not directly on the heat, so there is no chance of burning. Make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't hit the water. You can also melt the chocolate with the microwave. The trick to melting chocolate is giving it a hand by chopping it in smaller bits. And always keep an eye on the chocolate.

So chop up your chocolate. Melt the dark and white chocolate au bain-marie or in the microwave. When its all melted just pour the dark chocolate over the cake and using a warm spoon cover the cake. Using a spoon and dip it in the white chocolate and move from the top to the bottom in a swift move, splashing a stripe of white chocolate on the dark chocolate. Do this until you finished the white chocolate, all in the same order. Now using a knife, make lines in the opposite order then the white chocolate. This will create a beautiful pattern. Let the chocolate set, for around an hour. 

Tofu cream cheese for frosting
My biggest problem with cream cheese is fat. If the cream cheese isn't fat enough, the recipes always ask for 1 part of cream cheese and 1 part of butter. So adding on to your lovely carrot cake, extra fat and fat! Although the sugary delight tastes fine with the fist bite, after the second bite of the thick layer of frosting you had enough.

Adding to the equation that one of my friends has a dairy allergy. So cream cheese and butter are out of the question. So I started looking for a vegan recipe to make cream cheese. Combining different recipes and trying out for taste, I came up with this one.

Note: To make one thing very clear, this will never taste exactly like cream cheese. There is almost no fat in this tofu cream cheese, that will normally gives you the substance and taste of regular cream cheese frosting. This tofu cream cheese has a more yogurt-like taste and a substance of a thick yogurt. So very low in fat, but high in flavor, this tofu cream cheese frosting is a perfect alternative for those conscious eaters.

1 package of silken tofu
2 teaspoons of coconut oil
1/4 cup of peeled almonds or cashews
1 tablespoon of non-dairy milk, like coconutmilk, almondmilk, soymilk
1 teaspoon of salt
1-2 tablespoons of lime juice
3 tablespoons of sweetner or sugar, like coconut blossom sugar
Optional: flowers for decoration, I used flowers from my mom's herb garden. Like the borage starflower, flowers of oregano and lavender. 

Put the tofu, coconut oil, nuts, milk and salt into a blender. Blend for 2-3 minutes. Taste the mixture and add the lime juice and sugar to taste. You can choose to add more or less of the lime and sugar. 
Put in a container and cover, let it set in the fridge for at least an hour. After setting use a spoon to cover the cake. If you have some edible flowers you can decorate your cake. 

Cream cheese frosting with a twist
I may not like it, but maybe you do. And in the last year I made a lot of cream cheese frosting. So this is for you cream cheese lovers out there.

 

150 gr of cream cheese

100 gr of butter
150 gr of icing sugar
1 lime
Optional: chopped or whole walnuts for decoration and crunch

Mix together the cream cheese and butter until a smooth mixture. Fold in the icing sugar. Now taste. If you like it like this, you're finished. But if you want a twist use the lime. With a fine grater, grate of the green skin and add to the mixture. Also adding some the juice of the lime. How much? That's to your taste, so add bit by bit till you like it. Sprinkle the chopped walnuts around the edge of the cake or place whole walnuts around the edge.

So there you have it, three ways of topping of your carrot cake. Try them out and enjoy!