Roasted Carrot Carrot Cake (and muffins!), Gluten-Free

On a mountain

It must be fall. I'm in serious baking mode. French-style bread. Gluten-free risen bread. Monster cookies. Brownies (semi-failure). Chocolate pumpkin cake. Carrot cake. If only I had more time. The day I made this cake, I also hiked a nearby mountain with a co-worker and then volunteered to yank invasive species out of the ground at a local park for three hours in advance of Make-a-Difference Day since I'll be at work on the actual day. Then, I went home to walk S (okay, okay, hike with S) and call a couple of people who I've been playing phone tag with for a week or so. There's so much to cram into weekends.

I had this much carrot
when I gave up grating

To say the least, this cake was inspired by general feeling of "there's no way I'm going to stand here for 45 minutes and hand-grate carrots for this carrot cake," which I was making at the request of my supervisor for another co-worker who's birthday had recently passed. I said yes, because I love to bake (and I knew I could try and make it gluten-free) and when I said yes, I had no idea how much time I'd invest into other activities during my weekend.

Rather than grate the carrots, I decided to pan roast them (which I define as different from sauteing only because I didn't stir them very often at all) until they were very soft and then mash them before adding them into the cake batter. Pan roasting the carrots let me:

1) work on making dinner, which was good, since I'd only had a carrot since breakfast

2) do a little kitchen clean-up

3) mix up other cake ingredients
4) turn on Chain of Lakes because I had carrot-free hands

5) feel less irritated by the very slow process of hand-grating carrots (I did hand grate about 1/2 cup before I got fed up with the process and you could do this too, if you were so inclined--I just added the grated carrot with the mashed carrots to the cake batter.)

Roasting the carrots also makes them sweeter and deepens their carrot-y flavor.

Look at those brown sugar-spots

The base recipe for this carrot cake came from one of my favorite carrot cake recipes--a vegan recipe (though I used regular cream cheese in the images you see--I have made it the other way and actually prefer the way Tofutti  Better Than Cream Cheese tastes to regular cream cheese, but that's just me--because the person I'm making this for is neither GF or vegan).

I'm still experimenting with gluten-free flours and trying to avoid that not-so-lovely GF flavor. Since I started helping a friend out with her pie stand at the local growers market, I've heard several people say "I don't like anything gluten-free," to which I have a hard time not being snarky ("do you realize how much you eat that's naturally gluten-free?"). But to be fair, a lot of gluten-free baked things not only taste gluten-free, but they have a particularly grainy texture that's not so appealing. In this cake, I used a mixture of brown rice flour, GF oat flour, quinoa flour, and millet flour.

I poured the batter into an 8x8 pan and still had plenty of batter left to make a dozen cupcakes (muffins, I'm not adding extra sugar to them all and if I were to intentionally make them as muffins, rather than cake, I'd probably scale back the sugar by at least 1/2 a cup--I think it's far too sweet right now for muffins).

Vegan Roasted Carrot Carrot Cake (Gluten-Free)

2 pounds carrots, washed and sliced into coins

Olive oil

3/4 cup brown rice flour

3/4 cup oat flour

1/2 cup quinoa flour

1/4 cup millet flour

2 teaspoons guar gum

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon each cardamom, cloves, nutmeg

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup light brown cane sugar 

3/4 cup cane sugar

3 egg equivalents (I've used both flax eggs and Ener-G Egg replacers with this recipe, both work fine)

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1 14-oz can crushed pineapple, drained

1 cup shredded coconut

nuts and raisins, optional

Faux Cream Cheese Frosting
(again, you could use regular cream cheese and butter if you're not vegan or preparing this for a vegan, but this is really good frosting)

1 8-oz package vegan cream cheese

1/3 cup vegan margarine, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups vegan powdered sugar, sifted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (really, you should do this after you've mashed the carrots to save energy, but this type of information is usually at the front of recipes, so here you go). Roast the carrots in a saute pan, lightly coated in oil, over medium heat, stirring occasionally until the carrots are beginning to caramelize and are very soft.

Carrots ready to pan roast

If you're under time constraints* or your carrots just don't seem to be getting soft, you can add a little water to the pan and cover it for a few minutes to steam them after they've begun to brown. Let the carrots cool a little and then mash them until you've got very few chunks. You will want about 1 1/2 cups of mashed carrots total.

Carrots, almost ready to mash--get them a little browner than this

While the carrots are roasting, in a medium bowl, mix flours, guar gum, baking soda, baking powder, spices, and salt.

In a large bowl, mix sugar and egg replacer until creamy (use an electric mixer if you can get your hands on one--it makes life so much easier). Add the vanilla and combine, then add the vegetable oil and mix well. Mix wet and dry ingredients together, combining well (one of the great things about gluten-free foods is that it's a bit harder to over mix). Stir in the carrots, pineapple, and coconut. Add nuts and/or raisins, if using.

Grease a pan (9" x  9" pan for a thicker cake--I promise it won't fit into an 8" x 8"--or 9" x 13" for a thinner cake) and smooth the batter into the prepared pan. Bake 40-45 minutes (for a thicker cake--reduce time if you're using a 9" x 13"), or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cake cool entirely before frosting.

Above and Below: Roasted Carrot Carrot Cake Muffins
(1/2 of which turn into cupcakes because E requested  it)

For the frosting:

Beat together the cream cheese and margarine in a medium-large bowl until smooth. Add the vanilla and incorporate well. 1/2 cup a a time, beat in the powdered sugar. Beat in the powdered sugar until smooth before adding more. The frosting should be very thick. On a humid day, you might have to add more powdered sugar.

Frosted Cupcake

*For my carrots to get soft enough to mash, it took about 45 minutes of pan roasting in a medium-large saute pan over medium to medium-high heat and I did add about 1/4 of water and let them steam for about 10 minutes at the end to make sure all the carrot coins would mash pretty well.

Chocolate Pumpkin Cake

Okay, so the name is a bit deceptive. Maybe more than a bit. The only thing that's pumpkin about this cake is the color and (kinda) the shape. E's boyfriend asked for a "very moist" chocolate cake for his birthday and he wanted it pumpkin-themed. The cake, not the birthday (though a pumpkin-themed birthday would be pretty sweet--coming from someone who loves carrot cake and pumpkin bread).

Those were his requirements. When E shared this, I immediately started looking up recipes for moist chocolate cake. But I'm skeptical of any recipe that informs me that it's moist. If you need to advertise it, usually I think you're lying. Or at least not being fully honest. Eventually, I fell back to a recipe I've used (and made gluten-free) several times, the vegan chocolate avocado cake on Joy the Baker's website. If you're interested in the gluten-free version, please take a moment to look at those modifications.


At first E seemed skeptical. "Avocado?" she asked from the other end of our dining room table. 


I nodded and she wrote it on her shopping list.


We only made the cake part of Joy the Baker's vegan chocolate avocado cake, and then added (non-vegan) orange frosting to the outside. The orange frosting came from a bag (which was a total revelation to me--I didn't know you could buy frosting mix--and now, after watching E put it together, I'm not sure why you would. To me, it seemed like selling really expensive confectioners sugar and vanilla since we still had to add milk and butter to the mix. The frosting turned out super-thick and in an attempt to make it just a little thinner E added too much milk and made it a bit runny--which was fine, since we had extra confectioners sugar and could thicken it back up some.). We added orange (well, yellow and red) coloring after making up the frosting.


We did decide to make this a layered cake, so I also made a chocolate frosting from cocoa powder, butter, sugar, and non-fat yogurt. I didn't measure ingredients there, so the recipe is approximate and you'll probably have to play with it or wait for me to have another occasion to make chocolate cake and try that recipe again (and this time measure).


To achieve the pumpkin shape, we used a bundt cake pan and, because we only had one pan, baked the two parts of the cake one after the other. If I were to do this again, I probably wouldn't want to do it two batches, but instead make one larger (taller) cake that was less round, but probably equally pumpkin-shaped. For the cocoa, we used Dagoba unsweetened cocoa powder, but any unsweetened dark cocoa will do.


Chocolate Pumpkin Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour
6 Tablespoons unsweetened organic cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil (we used olive oil)
1/2 cup soft avocado, well mashed, about 1 medium avocado
2 cups water
2 Tablespoons white vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Buttercream frosting (see note about this above)
Chocolate wafer cookies

Sift together all of the dry ingredients except the sugar.  Set that aside too. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour two 8 or 9-inch bundt pans.  Set aside. 

Mix all the wet ingredients together in a bowl, including the super mashed avocado. 

Add sugar into the wet mix and stir. 

Mix the wet with the dry all at once, and beat with a whisk (by hand) until smooth. 

Pour batter into a greased cake tins. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 

Let cakes cool in pan for 15 minutes, then turn out onto cooling racks to cool completely before frosting.

Cake with Chocolate Yogurtcream Frosting

Chocolate Yogurtcream Frosting

(Strange, but it works! Remember, these proportions are approximate--but if I make it again (when I make it again) I will post updates about quantities.)

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 Tablespoon unsalted butter

1/4 cup Dagoba chocolate powder

1 Tablespoon plain, nonfat yogurt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cream together the sugar, butter, and cocoa powder . Add the yogurt and vanilla and mix until creamy. If it's too thick, add a touch more yogurt. If it's too thin, add more confectioners sugar.

To assemble the cake:

Once both cakes have cooled, you'll want to have them both with bundt-cake top (the part that was nearer to the rack as it baked) down on the cooling rack. Spread the chocolate yogurtcream frosting on one of the cakes (you probably won't use it all, but maybe it's really thick and you really like chocoalte). Flip the other cake on top, making sure the bundt-cake edges align.

Aim for something more or less like this

Carefully spread on the (orange) buttercream frosting. 

E Spreading frosting

It's best if this is thicker than the pictures show so you can smooth it into the contoured shape of the cakes. 

Our frosting is a bit runny, but so tasty (and super sweet!)

Once you've frosted the cake, carefully insert the chocolate wafer cookies (if you can get a green wafer, more power to you) to create a stem-effect.

Our first attempt at pumpkin shaped cake is complete!

Gluten-Free Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting

Okay, so my friend Gen's birthday was Monday. She's gluten-intolerant and less than thrilled with the GF cupcake mixes available on the shelves (though apparently some are better than others). For her birthday though, she wanted cupcakes--well, okay, she's been wanting them for a while now. Chocolate cupcakes.

Well, why not? Using a GF flour mix, most things are easy enough to convert even if they still taste GF. But here's the thing. Gen's boyfriend is vegan. I actually enjoy cooking/baking vegan things for this guy though (he's always incredibly grateful when someone makes him--especially bakes him--something vegan), so making the decision to accommodate them both wasn't too hard.

What was hard: finding a cupcake recipe I liked. My friend Annie directed me toward this one from Love & Olive Oil--which had the advantage of already being vegan. I substituted in Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour (hooray for compound nouns!) and the appropriate amount of xantham gum (it helps gluten-free things bind), as well as garbanzo bean flour in place of the almond meal (mostly because I can't afford almond meal!). I got the cupcakes in the oven and then began working on the frosting.

Well actually, my friend and Gen's roommate Brenna started working on the frosting. With her boyfriend. We used French Vanilla soy creamer instead of regular soy creamer with a vanilla bean. You could also use some of the coconut milk instead of the soy creamer, if you wanted coconut-flavored frosting. We should have added a little more powdered sugar so the frosting would hold up better when I piped it on. Pictures will follow soonish! Brenna was my photographer.

When we tried these, they were better than I expected--they were great (and I hate, hate, hate chocolate cake). They didn't taste gluten-free or vegan.

Here is the modified recipe (including the increased sugar in the frosting):

Gluten-Free Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting
Yields: 12 regular or 48 mini-cupcakes
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup coconut milk
1/3 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup sugar**
1 cup gluten-free all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon xantham gum
2 tablespoons garbanzo bean flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder (I used Extra dark)
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

For Frosting:
1/2 cup vegan margarine, room temperature
3-4 cups confectioners' sugar**
2 tablespoons French Vanilla soy creamer

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin pan with paper liners.
Whisk together the coconut milk, sugar, oil, and vanilla extract until incorporated. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, xantham gum, garbanzo bean flourl, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Make a well in the center of dry ingredients and pour in coconut milk mixture. Stir until just smooth (do not overmix).

Pour into liners, filling each with 3 tablespoons of batter (cups should be no more than 2/3 full). For mini cupcakes, fill each with 1 tablespoon batter. Bake 18-20 minutes (or 10-12 for minis), or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.


For frosting, cream butter until smooth and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add 1 cup powdered sugar and beat until combined. Mix in the soy creamer. Continue adding sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition (depending on the temperature of your butter, you may need more or less sugar/creamer to achieve the proper consistency). Continue beating until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Spread or pipe onto cooled cupcakes.



**A quick note about sugar and veganism. A number of vegans won't eat regular, refined (white) sugar because of the way it's processed. My vegan friend doesn't really care--but if you're making this for a vegan who does, you should probably talk to them about alternatives or visit any number of vegan blogs that will discuss alternatives.