Carrot Cake Part II

For Hannah and my fourth monthiversary, Valentine's Day and my birthday I made a recreation of my original carrot cake. I figured, what's a celebration when there is not cake, besides I had been craving cake for some time and really wanted to redeem myself at making carrot cake. I had also picked up some vegan cream cheese and really wanted to make the frosting that is so totally essential to a perfect carrot cake.

Because I didn't like my first carrot cake recipe, I again went to the internet to find a new recipe. This time I found a new recipie on what soon became one of my favorite vegan recipe websites. hellyeahitsvegan.com
In the morning before work I made my carrot cake. I was so impressed by my creation that I decided to share it with my coworkers. Unfortunately I placed the cake for my trip to the PATH station on the back of my bike and when I had gotten to the PATH station, my cake was no longer in the state it had started in. I was upset, but because it was so good I still offered it to them. But none of my coworkers wanted to try it, claiming that they ate with their eyes not with their mouths... I was sad that they would not try it because it was delicious! In the end it's their loss, it was soo good!

But enough from me and my woes of exploding cake. Here's the recipe from HellYeah ItsVegan:

Classic Vegan Carrot Cake

2 1/3 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp salt

6 tbsp flax seed meal
3/4 c warm water
1½ c sugar
1 c oil
1 tsp vanilla
2 c shredded carrots
1 c raisins

Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz vegan cream cheese
¼ c margarine, softened
1 tsp vanilla
2 c powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350º. Line two 8×8″ pans with parchment paper. In a small bowl, sift together dry ingredients (flour through salt). In a large bowl, whisk together flax seed meal and water. Beat in sugar and oil. Add vanilla and carrots and mix until combined. Add dry mix and stir until moistened. Fold in raisins. Pour equal parts into pans. Bake for 18-20 min, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in pans 10 minutes.

For the frosting, beat together cream cheese and margarine. Add vanilla and powdered sugar; whip until smooth. (Don’t overbeat; in my experience, store-bought vegan cream cheese has a tendency to get runny.)
Use a knife to loosen edges of cake from pans. Using parchment paper, lift cakes out of pans. Carefully remove parchment paper from one cake. If you are making a layer cake and a large pan, cut the cake in calf, frost then stack and frost again.

Last Step, enjoy!

The cake was soo good. I gave it to Hannah and she nearly went crazy. You may remember a blog link I put up here a few posts ago, well it is exactly how Hannah acted after she tried the first tiny test bite. http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/10/god-of-cake.html

Tofu Scramble and Sandwich

So I have been cooking for Hannah for about three months now, trying to make her introduce new foods, cooking so that she can always eat the food and so that she would only introduce at most one or two foods at one time. But cooing only for her just wasn’t cutting it any longer to satisfy my vegan adventures. I needed to branch out and start cooking for myself.

There is one thing that Hannah and I both share. We both cannot eat eggs. For Hannah if she eats an egg she could potentially end up in the hospital with a closed up throat. For me, when I eat an egg in an egg state (not in a baked stated) I get the worst stomach aches. Since I have not been able to eat eggs, eggs are the one thing that I have missed the most. Almost any breakfast food has eggs in them: omelets, French toast, scrambled eggs, fried eggs; I used to love them all. So not being able to eat them I started thinking about how I could substitute a morning egg dish.

While I was volunteering for a year I started experimenting with substitute egg dishes. The one recipe that I came across the most often in my searches was tofu scramble. My favorite so far is the one I found from Post Punk Kitchen   http://www.theppk.com/2008/10/scrambled-tofu/

And for convenience sake, I'll write down my own version of the recipe.

Tofu Scramble

1 lb extra firm tofu drained and pressed
1 tbs olive oil
1 medium onion chopped
1 1/2 c chopped artichoke hearts
2-3 cloves garlic
¼ nutrition yeast
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt

Place oil in skillet on the stovetop. Brown onions 5 minutes add garlic and sauté for 2 minutes add artichoke for another 2 minutes. Add spices. Add ¼ c water to deglaze the pan.
Crumble tofu and mix well. Do not break up tofu, lift and turn in pan. Cook for 15 min stirring occasionally and adding water if tofu sticks. Combine nutritional yeast cooking for another few minutes. Serve and enjoy with a piece of toast and Fake’in.

The next day I used the leftovers in a sandwich with fake’in and mustard. I’m sure it would also be good with tomatoes, although I’m not a fan.  

Split Pea Soup

For a while I’ve been thinking that I needed to feed Hannah some more dinner like foods. I’ve made a whole bunch of desserts which are delicious, but as Hannah said the other day; with all the sweet food I've been making her, I'm going to make her fat. Now I don't want that, besides I want to be able to feed Hannah at all times, providing her with a well-rounded diet.  I mean she eats great already, but I don’t want my contribution to her diet being only the sweet stuff. So I started wracking my head for new dinner ideas

From time to time I find myself craving some of my food growing up. One of which I particularly crave when it is especially cold and raw out, split pea soup. A few times now I have suggested to Hannah that we make split pea soup for dinner and every time I suggest it she was excited, although perhaps not as crazy about it as for French toast or cake. But I was never able to get around to making it, probably because we never had split peas on hand or we were just too lazy to go out and get some. Well one week into February I decided to make her a delicious dinner, complete with split peas soup, fake'in (fo bacon), and dinner rolls (not containing any corn). It was perfect and I was really excited to finally be able to share my love of split pea soup with Hannah. 

My love of split pea soup goes back to memories eating it at home when I was younger. When my mother used to make it, she would stew the peas in a crock pot with ham hocks and all the necessary herbs and spices, giving it the right amount of porky, smoky, delicious flavor. Add a fresh dinner roll and I was in heaven. So warm and tasty, a soup that could really fill you up.

Since I left my parent’s house I have not had split pea soup with ham hocks, but thanks to my ingenuity I have been able to make some pretty good split pea soups sans the ham flavor. Although not going to lie, split pea soup is always better with the ham… But since my girlfriend is vegetarian and will not eat anything that comes from an animal with four legs I had to forego it yet again. Luckily split pea soup is still delicious without the ham.

So as I have never written down any of my recipes except a few that my mother gave me when I left the house the first time, I had to go to my favorite recipe book, the internet. Luckily there are millions of vegan split pea soup recipes out there. This is the one I chose:

Vegan Split Pea Soup


2 c split peas
8-10 c water
1 large onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 medium potatoes
2 large carrots
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp sage
Salt and pepper to taste
4 strips of Fake'in precooked and cut into bits (optional)


Rinse peas in order to remove any impurities or rocks
Place peas and water in a large pot on stovetop, bring to a boil. Once at a boil add remaining ingredients and let simmer for 1-2 hours.
Peas should be soft and easily dissolvable when done
Add salt or pepper for taste
Serve with a fresh roll or slice of bread


When I made this for Hannah I was also making it for guests and as this was the first time I had made it I was a little nervous. What if it didn’t taste that good and nobody liked it… It’s not that bad when I am just feeding Hannah, but when there are also other people on the line, it becomes a different story. In the end my first try at an all vegan split pea soup came out good. I almost completely forgot the salt and only remembered to put a bit in when I put the soup on the table. But surprisingly it wasn’t that bad. Needed some salt, but other than that everyone devoured it. At least next time I will remember to put the salt in ahead of time.  

Rice Pudding

Hannah's family has a tradition where at every family reunion the entire family makes all these different recipes of rice pudding. They are even so into rice pudding that they have a rice pudding song!Sounds like the most amazingly sweet family reunion ever. But unfortunately not for Hannah, as she can no longer partake in the festivities due to her whey allergy. Which is in all dairy products. NO Whey!!
Clearly this last bit of information must mean that after only 4 months of dating I was going to be taken to a family reunion. Nope, not going to her family reunion, I just needed inspiration for my next vegan food experiment. And so after hearing Hannah's poor story about never being able to have rice pudding again (I don't even remember why we were talking about rice pudding in the first place) my adventure to create vegan rice pudding began.
Not surprisingly enough, rice pudding is one of the easiest deserts one can make, not to mention the cheapest. For a normal rice pudding recipe all you needs is rice, milk, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, and not quite as necessary but definitely makes it delicious, raisins. And after not so much searching on the internet I found out that it is still not very hard to make vegan rice pudding. This is the recipe I found...

Rice Pudding


2 Cups of Water
1 Cup of Rice
1 1/4 cups of almond milk
1/3 cup of raisins
1/3 cup of brown sugar or maple sugar
1 t of vanilla
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t ginger
1/8 nutmeg

In a saucepan cook rice. While cooked rice is still in the pan, add the remaining ingredients. Stir to combine and continue to cook on medium low until all the liquid have been absorbed. Serve hot or place in refrigerator to serve cold.

Simple as that! Not to mention delicious, and one could even argue healthy!

Hannah and I shared this recipe with friends at dinner and and informed one of Hannah's rice pudding fiend friends about our creation, promising to bring him some. But the pudding was just too good and none was left at the end of the night. I believe that we still owe that poor man some rice pudding. Perhaps we will have to bring this recipe back sooner than later.

French Toast

While Hannah was away on her epic cross country train trip, I did some research into vegan cooking. I went to the library and got out the first vegan cook book that stood out to me. A Quick and Easy Guide to Vegan Comfort Food by Alicia Simpson. In the entire book there were two foods that stood out, French toast and Mac and cheese. But the first one to try had to be the French toast.

As a child my mother would always make French toast in the morning with cinnamon raisin bread. I have many fond memories of those mornings sharing French toast with my mother. Since my senior year in college I have developed an intolerance to eggs. Which is lucky for Hannah and me as she also is unable to have eggs. Finding a French toast recipe that would not use eggs was heaven for me.

I tried the recipe out first just for myself just to make sure it would come out right before I gave it to Hannah. It turned out delicious! It almost tasted like the real thing. The only thing that I had to figure out was how to work my stove top and how much heat to use. On my first try I made one that was light and warm, the next one I made was far too crispy. I have never owned a gas stove before, and this one in my apartment is iffy.

Vegan French toast

1c Almond Milk
2 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp Vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
Four slices of bread

Combine first five ingredients and whisk together until smooth, no lumps.
One at a time, place a slice of bread in mixture, flipping it to make sure mixture if soaked into bread
Spray pan with Pam or add oil
Place soaked bread on pan until golden brown or cooked to desired crispness.
Enjoy with apple sauce or pure maple syrup.

I served this recipe to Hannah for the first time the first morning we spent together after she got back from her trip. She loved them, saying that they tasted just like the real thing, just as she remembered them. Although she could not use the syrup I had at my apartment she had them with apple sauce. I made her French toast first and by the time I had finished mine she had already devoured hers. Her reactions to the option of eating French toast in the morning since I first fed them to her are very much akin to a blog both Hannah and I enjoy reading.   http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/10/god-of-cake.html

Carrot Cake

For our first third month anniversary Hannah and I went went out to Manhattan to go ice skating at Bryant Park. It was the first time either of us had been skating in a real long time, and was so much fun. After we finished ice skating, we went to a little diner to get something to eat. While we were there we marveled over their desserts and cakes. We both specifically drooled over the carrot cake, so moist and delicious looking, chalk full of walnuts and raisins. Hannah sighed, saying that she missed eating cake, all thanks to her egg allergy.

Here was my chance to show Hannah that I really cared for her. I would make her a carrot cake that she could actually eat! And to make it even better I would make it for her right before she went on her epic train trip cross country. So that her last memories of me before her trip were of my amazing culinary skills.

My first step was to ask my co-worker, notorious for making some of the most delicious vegan cupcakes and other delicious vegan foods for some ideas. He provided me with some of his tricks and even a carrot cake recipe. But I wasn't satisfied just going off of his advise alone. So I went to work looking up carrot cake recipes and egg substitutes on the Internet. I found hundreds of carrot cake recipes both vegan and not vegan along with hundreds of ideas for egg substitutes.

I never knew there were so many ways to substitute an egg. You see an egg is soo important in many of the food we as Americas eat every day. Think about it, what do most Americans eat for breakfast? Either cereal or an egg in some form or another. There's scrambled eggs, fried eggs, hard boiled eggs, french toast, and so many other ways to eat an egg in the morning. And then you have eggs in baked goods and dinners to boot. Eggs are everywhere!

The reason eggs are so important in baked goods and many other American dishes is because of the special properties that only an egg can have. An egg binds such as in meatloaf, leavens (makes light and airy) for soufles and cakes, thicken for sauces and custards, glazes for breads and cookies, and adds moisture.

Because of the eggs many special properties, there is no one other ingredient that will replace it. What follows is a list of different ingredients which will replace and egg depending n the property needed.

• Half a banana or 2 TBS of apple sauce will add moisture
• 1TBS of vinegar plus 1tsp baking soda will add leavening properties
• 1 tablespoon flax seed meal plus 3 tablespoons water replaces one egg (combine ingredients and let stand for 3-5 minutes, or until it becomes gelatin like) will bind and add leavening properties

In my search to find the perfect egg substitute for my carrot cake I eventually went with Banana. After all it was the most accessible of the alternatives and might even give it an interesting flavor.

Here's the recipe I went with, originally found on vegweb.com, picture also found on vegweb.com (i didn't take a picture of the original cake... :(  )

Carrot Cake

    2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
    2 teaspoons baking soda
    2 teaspoons cinnamon
    1 teaspoon baking powder
    1 teaspoon salt
    3/4 cup light brown cane sugar
    3/4 cup cane sugar
    3 egg equivalents (e.g., Ener-G Egg Replacer)
    1 teaspoon vanilla
    1 cup vegetable oil
    2 cups carrots, finely grated
   
preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a bowl mix flour baking soda cinnamon, baking powder and salt.
In a Larger bowl mix sugar and banana until creamy then add vanilla and vegetable oil.
Mix wet and dry ingredients together stir in carrots.
Grease a 9x9in pan and smooth batter into pan.
Bake for 40-45 minutes until knife comes out clean.


The cake came out good. Not quite to my standards. And becuase I sustituted the eggs in the recipie with banana it turned out more like a banana bread than a carrot cake. I was also not able to make a frosting for the cake becuase I did not have and vegan cream cheese.
It was not a total fail but not the best thing I had ever eaten. I swore that I would make another cake, a better cake and a cake that had vegan frosting!

Thanksgiving

Hannah and I started dating the end of October which meant that one of the largest eating holidays was right around the corner, Thanksgiving. I decided to invite her to the Thanksgiving dinner put on at my community. But I had a problem, what was I going to feed her. I knew all her food allergies, and from the choices I had left there was not much I could make.

One thing came to mind, a staple in my family which we always make for the holidays, squash biscuits. But I was a little concerned that she wouldn't even be able to eat them. Firstly the biscuits used a lot of butter and milk, both of which contain whey which she would not be able to eat, even if they were cooked in. Next I wasn't sure that she could have squash or yeast, two of the most important ingredients in the recipe. And last was a purely vane concern; would she even like them?

My family had never deviated from the recipe before; it has been the same since I first tried them as a small child. I wasn't even sure that they would taste decent if I changed them. In the end I decided to change just two things, substitute the butter with margarine and the milk with almond milk. I chose to keep the rest the same, I was pretty sure that she could eat all the other ingredients; salt, flour, yeast and white sugar.

The day of Thanksgiving my community was running around cooking and baking and decorating the convent. I had told all of my community members to try as much as possible to not use dairy, eggs, or corn in their food. In then end Hannah could eat only a few things on the table, my bread, which she quickly found out was delicious and devoured half of the rolls, some roasted brussel sprouts, and some rice.

The dinner ended well. There were many good people in attendance, the food was delicious and almost completely devoured, there was good wine and beer and many laughs. I was also able to introduce Hannah to a bunch of my community members for the first time. All in all it was a great evening and I boosted my confidence towards making food for my girlfriend to boot.

Squash Biscuits 


5c Flour
1/2 c Sugar
1 t Salt
1 can squash canned or frozen (more is better)
1c scalded Almond Milk
1/2 c Vegan Margarine
1 packet of yeast or follow directions on container in 1/4c luke warm water
2 9x9 in Pyrex pans

Place packet of yeast in luke warm temperature water until all the yeast has dissolved and there are little bubbles at the surface.
Using a microwave safe container place margarine and milk in the microwave for one minute thirty second in order to scald the milk and melt the margarine
In a large bowl combine the squash, salt, sugar, yeast, milk and margarine and mix until completely combined, when combined add the flour and mix again until all ingredients are combined.
When done cover bowl with a clean towel and let rise until doubled in size
Preheat over to 375 degrees
Grease both 9in x 9in glass pans
Grease hands and roll dough in 18 rolls placing 9 in each pan
Cover with towel and let rise again
When doubled in size place in oven for 18 minutes
When golden brown take out of the over and enjoy. :)