Carrot Cake Cupcakes! Life, Death & Life Again.

Fact:  A raw foodist CAN have carrot cake!  Fact: A raw foodist CAN have cream cheese frosting!  Fact: A raw foodist CAN eat an actual cupcake that you have to pell the wrapper away from! 

And my favorite fact of all.  I remember so fondly the times when my mom would make her famous carrot cakes.  Quite ahead of her time I must say, and very rustic…hand grating all the carrots, using half the sugar, and maybe even whole grain flour…but after she’d put it in to bake, me standing there, licking the batter off the spoon, and THEN…oh, and then…using my fingers to wipe clean the bowl.  So I thought that moment of nostalgia would forever be in my past until last night… FACT: Raw foodists CAN lick the batter bowl clean.  To boot, we don’t even have to worry about salmonella!

So I did it!  I made what I am told are delicious carrot cake cupcakes.  It was a bit arduous, so much so that I didn’t even realize that I was making them to the beat of my own drum–I didn’t have the tv or radio on at all.  And even though I’ve really stopped watching tv, I do like to have some background chatter while I’m making food.  Of course, there were the typical “Jinji, really?” moments.  First, I need a bigger food processor.  The little kitchenaid dealie isn’t going to cut it anymore!  I found myself ridiculously working in batches with 6 cupcakes worth of batter.  Next, I’m learning there are rules to baking.  Like, mix some ingredients first, then add the others.  With cooking, you can have flexibility…do what feels right.  But not with caking!  (caking, because it’s not really baking, is it?)  But the carrot shreds in too early, causing great upset to my dates and walnuts, and the happy goo they were trying to create together.  So, stop take out the shreds that hadn’t interrupted and continue.  Stop, remove have the 1/2 done goo because of small container, continue.  Did I add the spices?  Should I??  Continue.  I mean that’s a good 30 minutes of un-do and re-do and a big mess!

But finally in spite of myself, I came out  with a batch of frosting, and the lovely batch of batter pictured below–shoved into silicone cupcake holders  (both the shoving and the silicone was actually pretty brilliant.  After they refrigerated for a while, I got nice densely packed uniform cupcakes that were super easy to remove!).  And, once I got half a brain and stopped trying to carve out perfect swirls of icing, like how it looks like in pictures, I put all the frosting in a ziploc bag and clipped the corner to pipe it out.  I’ve since learned that everyone knows to do that, but at the time I thought it was a stroke of pure genius. 

So everything cooled out in the fridge for a while as I basked in all my newfound carrot wisdom.  FACT: A rawfoodist CAN safely. literally, and relatively guiltlessly eat both the frosting and the batter with his/her finger before they even get the chance to make contact.  Sigh.  Oh!  And a joke:  You know you’re a raw foodist when “how long does it have to go in for?”  refers to refrigeration, not baking in the oven!  Hilarious, I know, I know.

 The Forbidden RAW Carrot Cake Cupcake

• 2 c grated carrots–squeeze the juice out using a papertowl, and reserve for a juice or a shake
• 1 cup dry walnuts
• 1 cup dates
• 2 T cinnamon
• 1 T unsweetened shredded coconut
• 1 T cacao nibs
• Sea Salt
• 1 T raisins

Process the walnuts and dates until they’re like a larabar consistency.  Add in carrots until everything is well combined.  Then, add everything else.  Put into a silicone cupcake tray.  Refrigerate for an hour or so.  Done.

Frosting

• 1 c soaked cashews
• 6 dates, also soaked
• Sea Salt
• 1 T lemon juice
• 1 t cacao powder

Process everything together, adding water as needed to get it to frosting consistency.  Spoon into a ziploc.  Refrigerate for the remainder of the time the cakes are getting cool.  

“Pop-out” the cupcakes, then pipe! Then top with hemp seeds, cacao nibs, cacao…coconut shreds, cinnamon.  ENJOYYYY!!! These are GOOOOD!