The Frosting on the Cake

My ladyfriend HATES carrots. Hates 'em. When I asked how she felt about taste-tasting some carrot cake this weekend, she begrudgingly agreed, on the condition that the carrots were smothered in a thick layer of frosting. Challenge accepted, courtesy of this week's Vegan Carrot Cake and Macadamia Frosting!

I have to admit, I was skeptical than a vegan substitute was going to live up to the delicious cream cheese frosting you normally find on carrot cake, and had resigned myself to the horrible fate of eating an entire cake all by myself if K didn't like it.

Luckily, we were both happily surprised by how this little experiment turned out. The cake was perfect - dense, moist, and not too sweet - and the frosting was impressively creamy. The macadamia nuts and cashews give it a subtle nutty taste, and the frosting is so rich that it's hard to believe that there's no butter or cream cheese hiding in there. I plan on using this liberally on other sweet treats in the future as well - red velvet cupcakes are next on my list.

Jeanine over at Love & Lemons knocks it out of the park with this one, so I'm going to send you her way for the recipe! Plus she has two adorable Shiba Inu pups so her Instagram account is basically dogs and delicious food...I don't know what more you could really ask for.

My only note - when the recipe calls for a "high-speed blender" for the frosting, apparently this is some NASA-level shit because the speedy little Ninja I normally use took forever and a day to get the texture super creamy. Don't fret! It'll take a little longer but you will get there eventually. Enjoy the photos, then try this recipe out for yourself!