Into the void
Whilst food will never fill an emotional void, what about the obverse of filling a void..? Like, for example, creating a tear in the space-time continuum? I sure tried my best; one - or two - of my carrot cake attempts have unintentionally congealed to a density that is usually associated with phrases such as 'event horizon'...
Fingers crossed you'll be spared the trouble, but thought I'd give you a warning, carrot cake is an unstable physical substance ;)
Into the cake, what goes? /asked Yoda, apparently
1.5 cup finely grated carrots
1 cup self-rising flour / regular flour + 1 teaspoon baking pwdr
1/2 cup sugar OR salted-caramel whey protein powder (it's delish, and makes it rise extra) OR vegan protein powder (I sometimes also replace some of the flour with protein powder)
1/2 cup brown sugar / muscovado sugar
1/2 cup veg oil (I use virgin olive oil because I'm bought by Greek mafia; and it makes a difference)
2 large eggs / 3 medium OR 3 table spoons arrowroot powder + water + carbonated water + a pinch extra baking powder (I'll explain later...)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts / pecans
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon (or a bit more actually.. unless using flavored protein powder, then no cinnamon or you might have a bit of a wild party on your tongue)
1/3 cup fresh ginger finely chopped (optional, but if you like ginger cake, gingery things etc - super yum)
3 - 4 big phat tablespoons of cashew butter (optional, I used it for the vegan version as did not have vegan protein powder, but then I reduced the oil by almost a half)
Instructions
Grating the carrots & chopping nuts (and ginger) is the most time-consuming and tedious, but if you have a boring Teams call at work (that you don't have to have the camera on for), I highly recommend that avenue; or watching something loud on the telly.
Otherwise dead simple, mix / beat with a fork the wet ingredients (oil + eggs, then muscovado sugar, and if using cashew butter) in one bowl, dry ingredients in another (flour, white sugar / protein powder, salt, cinnamon if using), holding out carrots, nuts and ginger. Combine the two into batter, should be cake-y rather than cookie-dough-y. Then stir in gradually the carrots - it can be a bit of a faff if the batter is on the dry side (as it tends to when using a lot of protein powder), but you can class it as upper-body workout ;) Last in are the nuts, and then into tin / muffin tray.
Vegans: sorry there's a little extra prep to replace the eggs; mix up arrowroot powder with cold / room temp water, 3 tablespoons per tablespoon of powder, add some of the sugar and a dash of oil, warm up in a pan - non-stick saucepan is ideal - and stir furiously all throughout warming up, it will start congealing but don't fret it will probably start off uneven, when it is this gelatinous blobby thing, leave to cool, then you can swap for eggs; ALSO once arrowroot 'glut' is combined with oil and sugar, add 1/3 cup of carbonated water, and 1/2 spoon extra baking powder
Bake either in a baking paper-lined tin, or super-uper-dooper well-oiled tin. Or both. This mothersucker can stick to baking tins / forms like glue. Seriously.
20 - 30 mins for muffins, 35 - 60 mins for cake, at 175 - 180.
Sorry about wide range of timings, but I've been burned (pun intended) by sticking to instructions when clearly there's ovens and ovens, and the stuff they say about electric oven equivalents of gas marks is LIES.
Just check after the minimum time that it appears to be rising / have risen, use baking stick, check not burning on top / cover with tinfoil and trust your gut.
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