I made this cake without icing so it was more of a carrot/spice bread and it was great (even non-vegans loved it!) with the following changes: -I did not add any of the optional ingredients. -I used half of the brown sugar (1 cup) and half of the suggested baking soda. -I also used one whole ripe banana mashed with the sugar and vanilla instead of flax seed and water. -Lastly I added about 3/4 cup of raisins instead of currants and cloves.
The consistency was perfect. The recipe needs some work. The cloves left the mouth burning. The recipe is missing fat and you can tell by the taste. Thus it does not satisfy your want for cake. Fat free does not equal healthy. The recipe has too much sugar. I added half the sugar and it was at a perfect sweetness for my taste. That was all that I changed. I will not make this recipe again.
Good with some adjustments. I followed the advice from other reviewers and only used one cup of sugar and it was plenty sweet. I didn't use any soy or tapioca since I don't have them but I added raisins instead of currants. I cut way back on the cloves added fresh nutmeg. I also used about half the baking soda and added a tsp of baking powder plus a couple of Tbsp of oil. Turned out very good perfect texture and alot lighter than my "traditional" carrot cake recipe.
Like the other reviewer this was way too sweet. 1 cup of brown sugar was perfectly fine even for sweet-tooth kids. Also too much baking soda - we got an aftertaste. Will try half the soda and 2 tsp baking powder instead like my other cakes - there's no acidity in the recipe so I don't know why the soda's there! Also 1 tbsp of cloves is entirely too much maybe 1 tsp? I substituted the soy flour for an equal amount of ground hazelnuts and left out the almonds currants and tapioca starch. The consistency is a good one though.
I used white flour since that's what I had on hand. I also cut the sugar in half replaced the cloves with nutmeg and currants with raisins. I didn't add any of the other optional ingredients. With the suggestions of others it turns out well although I forgot to take into consideration of the suggestion of one reviewer to cut the baking soda in half. It's not too strong but it is slightly noticeable. I love the base of the recipe.
A tablespoon of ground cloves is FAR too much! And 4 teaspoons of baking soda?? This is a bitter inedible cake.
This is a very good recipe! I didn't have all of the ingredients so I made a few substitutions. -Out of cloves tried pumpkin pie spice -No soy flour I tried oatmeal for fun -Out of almonds used walnut pieces I didn't use the currants or tapioca starch. The recipe turned out very well! Excellent base recipe with good recommendations. Next time I'll try to have everything listed and see how it turns out!
I used honey instead of sugar and nutmeg instead of cloves and the taste was really good. Although I had to bake my cake for an hour..
I made this cake with the 4 tsp. of baking soda and it feels heavy in the stomach. I'd add only half of it. Otherwise it's delicious!
