Raw?! Vegan Carrot Cake w. "Cream Cheese" Frosting

Now that I’ve discovered Pinterest, I’ve grown afraid for my girlish figure. For realz though, there are TOO MANY BORED HOUSEWIVES posting delicious and easy vegan desserts on there for me to function. I scroll through my feed and automatically want to consume 3,000 calories!!! So, looking for something just as satisfying to my sweet tooth and significantly less detrimental to my health, I investigated RAW foods. Now, I think raw food people are a little wacko. Like you make oatmeal by just letting it rest in some warm water.

How they thought of something this good

we'll never know

For those of you who don’t know-“raw food” is food that has not been heated above the hottest temperature your climate would get. In VA it’s like 103 but I’m sure there’s some official cut-off for the die-hards. They “cook” a lot of their food by drying it in a dehydrogenizer (incidentally, not a word or so spellcheck tells me) rather than baking it in the oven. There’s significantly less flour and significantly more smugness per recipe.

Yet, I do see the upside, there’s no processed sugar-even maple syrup isn’t used because of the boiling and thickening process it goes through-and they mostly use dates to sweeten things. When I explained about how I was going to use dates in a frosting to my friend, she paused and asked, “…doesn’t that make you poop?” Yes. Yes it does.

Anyway, I found a lot of vegan cheesecake recipes but they’re all like…effort. So I chose to try and whip up some raw carrot cake. What could go wrong, right? It’s not like it’s gonna burn or leaven improperly ;)

So here it is, the 100% Raw, Vegan Carrot Cake!

You’ll want to make the frosting first, trust me.

Frosting Ingredients:

1 cup raw cashews soaked overnight, drained, and rinsed*

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon lemon juice

4 pitted medjool dates

3 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons coconut oil

The Procedure

You can try using a Vita Mix but I usually shy from blenders when I’m making something that’s only going to come out as a little more than a cup of paste/liquid. I used a Cuisinart food processor to blend all the ingredients on high until thick and creamy. I also left it on for like 5 minutes so the mixture looked nice and frosting-y.

Pour into a bowl and refrigerate for 1hour.

That's a close-up of the frosting.

You're welcome.

Now make the cake J

Cake ingredients

1 ½ cups shredded carrot

½ cup pecans soaked overnight, drained, and rinsed

¾ cups pitted medjool dates

¼ cup raisins (SO optional, I can’t even begin. Raisins are disgusting, period.)

½ cup unsweetened coconut flakes/shreds

2 ¼ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (OR ¾ t of each nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger)

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

2 teaspoons lemon juice

The Procedure

Set aside carrot shreds. Grind the pecans in the food processor until they resemble crumbs, you don’t want a paste just yet. Add dates (and raisins *gag*). Pulse until a sort of dough forms. Add coconut, spices, vanilla, and lemon juice. Process until all incorporated and resembling coarse dough. Add carrot shreds to nut mixture and process until carrots are incorporated (do not over mix!) Press dough into either a cake pan, loaf pan, 8x8 brownie pan, or ramekins-all must be lined with parchment paper. Place in freezer and let the cake set for 45 min.

After the hour is up, spread frosting on the cake and eat! Be proud of your decadent, raw dessert! You can keep the cake in the fridge if you don’t eat it all in one go.