A-Mazing Carrot Cake with Coconut Cream Frosting

Last week I was tasked with making dessert when some relatives came for dinner. Hmmm...I've made so many batches of peanut butter cookies and a ton of pies in the last few months that I really wanted to make something new. After a bit of hunting online and a lot of pondering, I decided to try making a carrot cake. And what's a carrot cake without frosting, you ask....well, at least that's what I asked. HA! In the "good ol' days" (i.e. when I could have dairy and soy), I usually topped my carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. That was definitely out. So a bit more searching, and I found an alternative - coconut cream frosting. Yum!

The cake and frosting turned out great, and I would definitely make both again. The cake was very moist, and the frosting has a really nice whipped cream type consistency. Not exactly diet food, but we're taking dessert here, so whatever. HA!
I will caution you on the frosting though - you must chill the cake and keep it in the fridge, or the frosting will melt.
OK. Enough talking, here's the recipe. Let me know what you think!

Carrot Cake
Adapted from Ashley Skabar's About.com recipe

• 2 cups white flour
• 1 ½ t. baking powder
• 1 t. baking soda
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• ½ t. salt
• 1 t. cinnamon
• ½ t. ground ginger
• 2 cups grated carrots
• ½ cup canola oil
• ¼ cup applesauce
• 3 large egg whites
• 1/4 cup plain rice milk (plain)
  
• 1 T. apple cider vinegar
• 1 t. vanilla

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Lightly oil and flour a 9” Springform Pan, tapping out the excess flour.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, cinnamon, ground ginger and salt.

3. In another bowl, combine canola oil, applesauce, egg whites, rice milk, vinegar and vanilla until well combined. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and stir in the carrots until evenly incorporated.

4. Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake, until a tooth inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Cool completely, and frost with coconut cream frosting (recipe follows).

Coconut Cream Frosting
Adapted from CassidyS' recipe

• 2 cups coconut milk, refrigerated at least 24 hours** (note that I used the Thai Kitchen brand that CassidyS recommended, and only chilled for about 2 hrs - worked great)
• 1/2 cup soy/dairy free margarine
• 1 Tbs vanilla
  
• 1/2 - 1 cup powdered sugar, to taste
• 1/2 tsp. lemon juice

Beat butter on high until smooth. Scoop out the coagulated cream from the coconut milk and beat with the butter until smooth (the longer you refrigerate the coconut milk the thicker your icing will be). Add in the vanilla, powdered sugar, and lemon juice.

Wait to ice the cake until the cake has cooled completely, to avoid melting your frosting, and keep the cake refrigerated. Best to serve the cake after refrigerating for at least and hour, to ensure the frosting has set up.

** Imperial Dragon brand coconut milk from Wal-Mart is not recommended, as it can be hard to get it to separate. The Thai Kitchen brand works great and requires only a few hours of refrigeration.

Finally, if coconut isn't your thing, you could try this dairy-free buttercream frosting recipe - although I haven't tried it yet, so I can't vouch for it. If you try it, I'd love to hear what you think!