Fat-Free Vegan Carrot Cake

Serving Size : 10

2 cups carrots — finely grated, packed
1 1/2 cups brown sugar — packed
1 3/4 cups water
1 cup raisins — or other chopped dry fruit
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups unbleached flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
Lemon Glaze — (or confectioners sugar)

In a saucepan, combine the carrots, brown sugar, raisins or dried fruit, and vanilla. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes, then remove from the heat, cover, and let sit for at least an hour. In a large bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Whisk or stir to combine thoroughly and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 300F about 15 minutes before you are ready to mix the batter. Generously oil and flour a 10-inch bundt pan. Stir the cooled carrot mixture into the dry ingredients just until no trace of flour is left. Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan and bake until the cake feels firm to the touch and a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean, about 1 hour.

Cool in the pan for 10 minutes on a rack, then invert onto a serving plate. Dust with confectioners’ sugar or top with our simple Lemon Glaze (recipe follows).

(NOT FATFREE Variations: Add 1 cup of chopped nuts and/or 1/2 cup of unsweetened shredded coconut to the batter.)

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

Lemon Glaze

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice — (about 2 lemons)

In a small nonreactive saucepan, combine the sugar and lemon juice. Heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar dissolves. Poke holes in the cake with a toothpick or small sharp knife and slowly pour the lemon glaze over it.

Notes: For some odd reason, my oven cooks things faster than most recipes say they need to be in there. This cake cooked for only 42 minutes. So, experiment yourself to see exactly how long it really needs to cook for. I always go by the whole "when a knife/toothpick is inserted and comes out clean" motto. The picture shown above is the cake with powdered sugar. After tasting, it seemed "heavy" to me, and a bit dry, but not in a bad way. I ended up cutting the cake in half and putting the lemon glaze on one half (just to try it). It added moisture, but be careful about putting too much glaze on the cake because it can take away from the taste of the carrots, raisins, and the blended spices.

Recipe from www.fatfreevegan.com