Amy's Perfect Vegan Carrot Cake

I love baking vegan cakes! It is quite simple to make your favorite cake vegan and organic by swapping out a few ingredients. When converting traditional cakes into vegan cakes you must replace all dairy ingredients with substitutes. There are many alternatives available and these changes in ingredients may alter the original cooking time and temperature. The finished product may differ in taste and texture when made vegan, but in my own opinion will be equally delicious and much healthier.

Vegan Baking Substitutes:

Milk: Soy milk, rice milk, coconut milk, and almond milk make great baking alternatives. When making something sweet I usually use Silk's vanilla flavor soy milk. Not only are Silk's products non-dairy, but organic as well. Also, almond and coconut milks are good to use when making desserts. The ratio of soy milk to cow's milk is 1:1, meaning use the same amount of soy milk that the recipe calls for. Other milks may vary depending on the dish because of the leaving effects that may be required.

Butter: Vegan butter is available in most food markets and, as soy milk, has a ratio of 1:1 with traditional butter. Recipes that call for melted butter can be replaced with oil which would be 1/2 butter: 1/3 oil ratio.

Eggs: This may be the most complex dairy ingredient to alter. I usually use silken tofu as an egg replacement but there are many optional available. Your choice may depend on what the use is. For instance, when replacing eggs when baking, tofu serves as a great binding agent as eggs would. Generally ¼ cup tofu will replace 1 egg. The tofu should be pressed and drained before used as an ingredient in baking. Also, fruits can be used as egg replacements. Pureed bananas are one of my favorite substitutes, and when baking around the holidays I use squash or pumpkin.

Sugar: Some vegans use plain cane or beet sugar. However, cane sugar is put through a filtration process that sends it through activated carbon, which is charcoal made with animal bones. Beet sugar is not sent through this process and would be considered vegan, but most packages do not provide consumers with the knowledge of which of the two types the sugar is. Some vegans avoid sugar all together for this reason. Personally, I try to avoid sugar, but do use it while baking. I do recommend using unbleached sugar over bleached for health purposes. Some substitutes available are Splenda, Stevia, and xylitol. Many people argue that these sugar substitutes are not healthy alternatives. Numerous recipes allow syrups to be added in replace of sugar, but I have never personally tried this method.

My favorite cake is carrot cake, and I have found through trial and error what seems to be the perfect vegan carrot cake.

Amy's Perfect Vegan Carrot Cake

Ingredients:
1 c. drained tofu (equivalent to 4 eggs)
½ c. brown sugar
1 ½ tsp. mixed spice (cinnamon, coriander, nutmeg, clove, and ginger; sold in most grocery stores)
2 c. all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
3 c. shredded carrots
¾ c. cooking oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9 x 1 ½ cake pans. In a large mixing bowl stir flour, sugar, baking powder, and mixed spice until ingredients are combined. In a separate bowl mix tofu, carrots and oil, after mixed add to flour mixture and stir. Pour batter into pans.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes, or until wooden toothpick can be inserted and comes out clean. Then, cool cakes on racks.

Icing:
1 8 oz. package of vegan cream cheese
1/4 c. soy milk (less for a thicker frosting)
2 tbsp. vegan butter
¾ c. powdered sugar
½ tsp. vanilla extract
*Sometimes I like to add 1/3 c walnuts into the icing.

Combine ingredients and blend together until texture is smooth.

After cake has cooled completely, frost top and sides of one cake (I put a lot on the top of this one because it will be the center), then place the other cake on top and smooth icing onto it. Bon appetit!