|
My favorite dessert is carrot cake, hands down. My wife makes me an absolutely delicious, super decadent carrot cake for my birthday every year. That recipe is somewhere on Pinterest, a website that absolutely confounds me and thus I refuse to engage with it. I decided to make some vegan carrot cake wontons based on what I could remember! Here's what we're working with. Not pictured: the raisins because I forgot Carrots, pecans, raisins cut into small pieces. 2 tablespoons of sugar, 1/8 teaspoon each of ground clove/nutmeg/ginger/cardamom, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, a pinch of kosher salt, and one crack each of black & white pepper. Small pan on medium-low to toast the pecans. Bigger pan on medium-ish, maybe a tsp of oil and the carrots in to sweat. I want to get the moisture out of them and get a little bit of browning to bring out some of the flavors from the sugars in the carrots. They're starting to brown, so time to take them off the heat. Once the pecans are nice and toasted, I submerge them in a few tablespoons of oil and in goes the carrots. They cook for about 30 seconds and then I slowly stir in the sugar mixture and add the chopped raisins and about 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract. That cooks until everything is nice and fragrant, then off the heat. I drain the excess oil and set that aside for later. We now have our filling! It's at this point I curse very loudly because I have forgotten to get vegan butter. I need to wait for the filling to cool anyway, so I take a trip the store. ~~ 30 minutes have elapsed ~~ What's a wonton without a sauce to dip in? About 3/8 cup sugar + 1/4 tsp cardamom into a spice grinder, because powdered sugar is the way to go for this I think! Shooting for something that tastes like cream cheese frosting but is loose enough to dip a hot wonton in without jeopardizing structural integrity. Into a bowl: 1 heaping tablespoon each vegan cream cheese and vegan butter, plus the sweet, spiced, infused oil reserved from earlier. I wait until this comes roughly to room temp, then slowly stir in the sugar & cardmom mixture, reserving a little bit of that for dusting. Now it's wrapping time. Make two of them this way, then decide on an easier approach that is prettier anyway Time to fry: about 2 inches of oil into a pot to 350F. Testers go in first to make sure we're okay, then off we go! Keep tossing around and flipping them until they're nicely crispy and golden brown, then onto a rack to dry and get dusted with cardamom sugar. The wife and I dig into the testers because we can't wait. Dip into some sauce and time for the first bite! Super crispy, the filling has a great texture and the spices all come together without being overly sweet. The sauce is absolutely divine and I could eat it with a spoon (and did once we finished the lot). Yum!!! All in all, a great experiment. I made them before dinner to ensure I had enough time and waiting until after dinner to finish them was very hard! If I were to do it again, I think I would fry them at a slightly lower temperature (maybe 325F) as these were almost too crispy if that were possble, and I think I would do a higher ratio of carrot to other ingredients as the carrot itself got a little bit lost in all the other strong flavors (though I suppose the same can also be true of actual carrot cake!). Either way, they were delicious and we definitely ate them all same night!
|
# ? Mar 31, 2024 00:49 |
|
|
# ? May 4, 2024 01:19 |
|
|
# ? Mar 31, 2024 02:06 |
|
How can you have these after dinner, when you could have them AS dinner?!
|
# ? Mar 31, 2024 04:22 |
|
I love it, gutsy move making an experimental dessert for a competition, and it looks like it paid off, they look great
|
# ? Apr 1, 2024 16:58 |
|
I really want to make these now, they look delicious, and I really dig the idea of a dessert dumpling
|
# ? Apr 1, 2024 17:01 |
|
Those dumplings look delicious. I love cardamom for desserts. It's great for apple pie too. I also love carrot cake and finding a way to make it in fried form is delightful.
|
# ? Apr 2, 2024 04:42 |
|
Wow! This looks delicious!
|
# ? Apr 2, 2024 22:34 |
|
These sound awesome!
|
# ? Apr 5, 2024 16:46 |
|
|
# ? May 4, 2024 01:19 |
|
I need to try this, this looks delicious and the powdered sugar is the cherry on top. Never thought of dessert dumplings and I'm not sure why, the oversight will be corrected!
|
# ? Apr 6, 2024 15:34 |