I promised I’d post this recipe, which is from Vegan With A Vengeance:
Ginger-Macadamia-Coconut-Carrot Cake
2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground or freshly grated nutmeg
1 cup pineapple juice
1/2 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup macadamia nuts, roughly chopped
1/4 cup crystallized ginger, chopped
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
2 cups carrots, gratedPreheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease two 8-inch round springform cake pans, or one 9×13″ baking pan.
In a medium mixing bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and ground spices.
In a large mixing bowl, mix the pineapple juice, oil, sugar, maple syrup, and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and combine well with a hand mixer or strong fork. Fold in the macadamias, ginger, coconut, and carrots.
Divide the batter evenly between the two round pans, or spread in the rectangular pan, and bake for 40-45 minutes. Let it cool in the pans. Once it is cool, remove from the pans and put coconut icing (recipe to follow) between the layers and more icing on top. If you’ve used a rectangular pan, you can cut the cake in half to form the two layers, or leave it as one layer.
Coconut Icing:
1/4 cup margarine at room temperature (earth balance brand is vegan!)
1/4 cup coconut milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconutCream the frosting until light and fluffy. Add the coconut milk and vanilla and combine. Add the confectioners sugar and mix until smooth. Hand held mixer recommended for this! Add the coconut, mix to combine, and refrigerate until ready to use.
This cake was so delicious, I can’t praise it enough. And it was very easy to make. In fact, considering that neither Mary nor I make cakes often (for me, almost never!) and we’d been drinking a fair amount of wine (at least I was!), and we were talking with her husband and another friend of theirs while putting this together, I feel that this recipe is practically fail-proof! And delicious. Did I mention that?
One of the compositional rules you’ll often hear is that subjects showing movement or looking in a certain direction should be given room to “move through” or “look through” the frame. (In other words, if the subject is moving or looking from the left to the right, it is best to position them more on the left side of the picture.) This picture, obviously, does not follow that rule, with the subjects almost leaving the frame. It works for me, though, and I’ve thought about why – I think it is because of their footprints.
January 20, 2008 at 11:03 am
#1 Thank you for the Dave Blog entry. You are the BEST!
#2 I am a recently converted Vegan, thus I am still a bit skeptical of the lost flavor and the”tastes I left behind,” yet this cake was OUTSTANDING. Mary made it again last night and it was loved and devoured by all!!!
#3 We are posting a pic on Mary’s blog tomorrow for those unable to see how the contents above look when combined…
#4 Why am I numbering each sentence.
E. The reason that beach/sunrise pic is so great is the ocean is always cool, the sunrises w/ FL clouds over the ocean are always unique and spectacular, and of course the main reason is that your 3 moving subjects are my 3 favorite beings on the planet(3 of 4 since Emme is a house cat and stays home!)!
Thanks for the spectacular pictures of us and our kids. Let us know if/when you have more that you can let us peek at. We don’t take many pic’s of us. You have obvious talent that you should continue to pursue with passion!
NamasDave
January 20, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I never make cakes but I think I might make this one. I could bring it to work and share it with a co-worker or two 😉
I am far from an expert when it comes to action photos but I don’t see this one action but as a portrait. Them being off to the side of the shot allows you to capture all the elements, the water, sky, clouds, sand, footprints. It would have been easy to zoom in and take a pic of the family and it would look like every other portrait. Your eye for seeing all though the lens is what makes you a step above most, or in my case a few flights of stairs above.
January 20, 2008 at 3:41 pm
@ Dave – I’m going to frame that bit about me being the best! :p
I’m so glad that the cake is such a hit, and that it satisfies the skeptics as well! I do know what you mean about expecting to be missing out on stuff as a vegan. I thought that for a short time when I first went vegan, mostly because the first consciously vegan recipe I used sucked. And then I realized that a bunch of my favorite recipes were already vegan, and I simply started trying different recipes, which accounts for my current cookbook obsession! And I am really glad that you and Mary will post a picture. I regretted not having a picture of it to post with the recipe!
I do have more pics of you and your fam. Though mostly of the family, I admit! I still haven’t finished going through all of them, but I’ll definitely share them with you as I get more. 🙂
@ Rich – I’m sure CC would adore this cake. 😉 And it is worth the time to put it together, which isn’t actually that much time anyway. It is really yummy, definitely a great cake to make, even for us seldom-make-cake people!
As for the composition, I wasn’t clear, but it doesn’t matter whether it is an “action” photo. Even in a portrait with no action at all, if the subject is looking to the right or the left, the rule of thumb is to give them the room in the picture to look. The same is true with subjects who are clearly moving, even if it is not an actual action pic.
This isn’t to say that the rules should never be broken. In fact, it is worthwhile learning the rules and then purposefully breaking them, because that can be powerful in itself! And some of the most famous photographers out there always broke some of the rules. But it is important to understand what other elements make it work when we do break those rules. These rules of composition came about because they ARE what generally works, after all.
And in this case, I think that the picture wouldn’t have really worked for me if their footsteps weren’t visible. Though it could be that they’re what stop the eye from following the shore right out of the frame, and that’s why they work. This is something that the instructor has talked about a few times that is new to me. I might bring this one to class and see what he has to say about it.
January 21, 2008 at 8:59 pm
OK- Dave is a riot! I love reading the comments back and forth from you both! It sounds like he and Mary are a great couple of friends.
Thanks for posting this. I have a carrot cake recipe similar to this, but I love playing with the different ingredients, like ginger and macadamias. It sounds fantastic, and being the addicted baker that I am, I will definitely try this soon (much to the dismay of my husband who is trying to lose weight, probably because his wife never stops baking cakes!)
Have a great week and looking forward to more beautiful pictures!
January 21, 2008 at 9:21 pm
jazmine – Dave and Mary are great people, and great friends. I feel very lucky to have met them!
That’s always the problem with baking – it is so much fun to do! And it is so bad for keeping fit!
Have a great week yourself! 🙂
January 28, 2008 at 9:50 pm
OK girl! That was the best cake. I made it the same day I baked the castle cake and this one was scrum-diddly-umptious! I really could not believe it was vegan and my husband said it was the best carrot cake he’s ever had (and that’s saying a lot ’cause that’s his favorite and I have a killer recipe!) From now on, though, I’m using this, so THANK YOU!
January 28, 2008 at 10:30 pm
I’m so glad you and your husband liked it as much as I did! And that’s quite a compliment, since it is his favorite and you already had a fantastic recipe! 🙂
Isa, who co-authored the Vegan With A Vengeance (that this recipe came from), is a really talented cook. She has an entire cookbook dedicated to vegan cupcakes! It is delicious.
April 29, 2008 at 8:34 pm
[…] for writers My friend, Mary, who you might remember from my Florida visit and fantabulous coconut ginger macadamia nut carrot cake, started a blog on writing a few months ago. She’s been making a living from her writing for […]
February 20, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Do you know if this cake requires refrigeration because of the frosting?
February 20, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Kristi, I can’t remember for sure, but I think we did keep it refrigerated. I don’t know if it is required, though. It might be that the frosting would just be super soft if you didn’t refrigerate it. Honestly, the best place to ask would be the post punk kitchen (theppk.com), on their forums.
February 20, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Kristi, I didn’t look at your website until after I commented, and I just have to say – omg! Your cakes look amazing, and it makes me think I need to make a trip to maine, just to have one of your cakes! kudos, that’s awesome, and so nice to see such a creative vegan baker!
July 31, 2009 at 4:29 pm
I don’t cook or do things like this. But one day I had to make this cake (my friend was and wouldn’t give me a slice). It was amazing. None of my friends (non vegans mind you) could believe I made cake or that I made good cake.
It was uber awesome.
I am making it again this weekend to welcome someone home and am going to make it into cupcakes this time around.
S
July 31, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Sara,
I’m so glad that you made this and wowed your friends with it! It is such a great cake. I bet it will be even better as cupcakes! 🙂
October 25, 2009 at 4:07 pm
[…] and independent study for my thesis) 5) Have been cooking a lot of scrumptious food (such as this and this) 6) Have not felt the least bit anxious or stressed about “the future”. […]
January 31, 2010 at 10:37 am
hey! the cake is delicious! i just made it last night. Just a word about your recipe post though. There’s a mini typo in that you say, “cream the frosting” in the icing recipe, but really it should read, “cream the margarine” (because you haven’t even made the frosting yet!!). Thanks. Have a good one!
February 11, 2012 at 7:10 pm
LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS CAKE, I ask my mom ( a non-vegan) to make this for m b’day every year as I LOVE carrot cake and missed it once I became vegan
March 22, 2012 at 10:09 am
Baked Recipes…
[…]Delicious Ginger-Macadamia-Coconut-Carrot Cake recipe « unrelenting ambiguity[…]…
May 11, 2012 at 3:38 pm
A co-worker recommended this recipe, and I made it without the sugar (just maple syrup). It was so good that when it was gone I had to make it again right away.
May 19, 2013 at 6:45 am
I used one of my shaving gels and first shaved
under my arms. It has the ability to tilt and pivot for great close shave.
Thus, the first wave, we go to New Hair Trimmer Remington R7130.
May 24, 2013 at 11:03 pm
The only problem I see with this Braun Series 7 is that it is quite expensive for most.
It has the ability to tilt and pivot for great close shave.
Battery life long without doubt help to maintain if you travel from one place to another.
August 2, 2013 at 4:21 pm
Investing in a compressor that is too small is going to waste time or just flat out won’t do the job. In order to do this you may invest a lot of time on the internet, where you can complete plenty of research in little or no time. Never look down your air line as you are opening it.
October 24, 2016 at 5:12 pm
[…] it? Well, whatever. Like we need an excuse to eat cake. We’ve road-tested this recipe, and it’s damn […]
June 9, 2017 at 7:46 am
Regards,