So for years I hated carrot cake. I don't even know why, I just remembered as a kid not liking it and never gave it a shot. Well last year I tried my sister-in-laws carrot cake she makes every family get together and what do you know, I loved it!
I knew right away I wanted to make it into a vape, but didn't really know quite how to go about it. I forget how, but I stumbled onto Nature's flavors carrot cake and the quest started. This recipe went through a lot of itteriations and I've been working on for a few months now, and I finally nailed it down! Even my SO said it tastes just like sisters carrot cake, so that was a win for me!
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NF Carrot Cake - @1.75%
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JF Yellow Cake - @2.5%
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TFA Cheesecake with Graham - 2%
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TFA Butter - @1%
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LA CCI - @2.5%
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FA Marshmallow - @1%
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FA Meringue - @1%
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FA Joy - @.75%
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FW Butterscotch Ripple - @2%
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TFA Vanilla Cupcake - @2%
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Sweetener - @.25-1%
Cake Base
NF Carrot Cake, JF Yellow Cake, TFA Cheesecake (Graham cracker), TFA Butter
The NF Carrot cake is an interesting flavor. It's pretty strong on the spice side, being fairly heavy on the nutmeg and allspice side, with a light cinnamon note and carries that subtle sweet note of carrots. Finding a balance was a big tough, to much and it's WAY to spicy, to little and it get's lost after a steep. I found after a steep the 1.75% to be perfect to carry the spice through the whole vape. Only issue is it lacks any kind of body
Luckily I got JF Yellow cake right around the same time so I knew I'd use it in here. JF's yellow cake is light and fluffy and just sweet enough without being a sugar overloaded cake. 2.5% is just right to give a cake base to the recipe.
Now stopped there, I felt that cake was to airy and needed some density to the mouth feel. I'm not looking for a fluffy angel food cake but more of a dense, somewhat crumbly cake base. To help had some body I went right to TFA Cheesecake with graham cracker, the cheesecake base brings a smoother, thicker mouth feel while also enhancing the icing to come later, then the heavy graham side of it giving some bready body to it. Still lacking the density though 2% here is enough to add body without imparting a graham cracker taste to the entire recipes
TFA Butter, this is the stuff right here! Since we DA/AP will give an incredible creamy, heavy mouth feel it seems obvious to use. Often times I'd look to TFA VBIC or CAP VC but I didn't want the vanilla or an eggy note, just the buttery smoothness 1% here ended up being perfect.
The Icing
LA CCI, FA Marshmallow, FA Meringue
It's carrot cake, so LA CCI is obvious for the frosting. Simple really, at 2.5% it works with the cheesecake to give a sweet icing with a touch of cream cheese tang. 1 problem though... I don't want icing so much as I want frosting.
Solution, FA marshmallow and FA meringue.
Plain and simple, these both add a to the sweetness of the icing and lift it up as more of a frosting then an icing by imparting some fluff to it. Easy as 1% each.
The finishing touch
If we were to stop here we have a pretty decent carrot cake, but I wasn't happy, it wasn't the carrot cake I was trying to recreate. Needed a deeper, darker sweetness, it needed a bit more body to the frosting, and a bit of separation to it. This part took the longest to nail down.
FW Butterscotch ripple, TFA Vanilla cupcake, FA joy, Sweetener
FW butterscotch ripple
At first I tried TFA brown sugar, but felt it dried the recipe out, so I went with FW butterscotch ripple. It's such a tasty flavor, deep brown sugar and butter with some extra cream. Brings that dark sweetness and keeps everything moist. 2% brings the sweetness to punch past the spice
FA Joy
Shout out to /u/Enyawreklaw on this one. Joy is such a weird flavor and I rarely use it. But when it works, it works great. This helps to separate the frosting from the cake by giving it a waxy sensation, so instead of being some weird creamy cake, it's a cake topped with frosting which was a problem I kept running into. .75 % here just for the mouth feel
TFA Vanilla cupcake
This actually proved key here. I kept trying with CAP vanilla cupcake but it just didn't work. Finally picked up TFA, and while CAP is more on the frosting side which is what I was looking for, it would unbalance the recipe. TFA's lean's more to the cupcake side of the flavor, but still retains some of the frosting. Using 2% here keeps the balance of frosting and cake in-tacked, adding body to both portions of the recipe to fill it out.
Sweetener
Okay, I'm sure you COULD skip this, but desserts are sweet, carrot cake is sweet. Without it the spice is still just a tad to much for me, so just a bit of sweetener to make it feel like it's something you'd vape after a nice savory meal finishes it off. You could adjust this between .25-1% based on your own taste, but I wouldn't leave it out entirely.
So there we have it, after about 4 months of work I finally have a carrot cake vape so I don't have to wait till a family dinner for it nor do I have to let my inner fat kid out and destroy the whole cake when it's around!
This one has been one of my favorite recipes to work on because it pushed me harder to get the balance of all the flavors were I wanted them without saying "ehh, good enough" which I could have done a couple months ago.
Steep time, 7-10 days, lets the spice settle down, and the frosting come together. You CAN vape it after 3 day's, but it really takes some time to fully come alive.
In the spirit of amazing carrot cake, here's my recipe.
Cake ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 1 1/2 cup oil
- 4 large eggs
- 2 3/4 cups grated carrots
- 1 8 1/2 oz can crushed pineapple, drained
- 1 3/4 cup shredded coconut
- 3/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
Grease and flour 3 9’ cake pans and preheat your oven to 350.
Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a bowl. Set aside. In your mixer bowl, stir together the sugar, oil and eggs. Put the bowl on the mixer add the flour mixture and start mixing. As the batter is coming together, add the carrots, pineapple, coconut, and nuts. Remember you’re making a cake batter, so don’t overmix.
Divide the batter evenly among the pans and bake for about 45 minutes, but check at 35 for doneness. Mom likes the toothpick method, I tend to use the push method, i.e. reach in and push on the cake. When it’s done, it feels done. When its mushy inside, it feels like it. Try it a couple times and you can tell.
Let cool and then frost.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 2-2.5 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 2 Tablespoons heavy cream (see note for substitutions)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/8 teaspoons salt, or as needed
Looks like a really nice recipe to me, good job. Especially that cake base, and I recommend you try to sub TFA Butter with CAP Butter cream @ 1.5%, it will also benefit the icing.
This base looks like a good one to work with in other cake recipes. Again, good work.
Have you tried adding a banana nut bread flavor like TFA's or just a nutty mix to make it a bit more flavorful? I know most carrot cakes contain nuts.
That's beautiful man! I went the same route with carrot cake, not catching on to the awesomeness until later in life.
Great sounding recipe too - sounds like you've really got it dialed in (and I was surprised to hear about a carrot cake concentrate lol) hope I get to try it some day :) thanks for sharing!
Thanks man! This one really took some work but I'm so glad I stuck with it.
If you ever wanna get the carrot cake concentrate, I got mine here
Gorgeous-looking recipe, you can really tell a ton of work and love went into this one. How did you find that High Desert Vapes? I've looked for reseller of NF flavors from that isn't loaded with other NF products that aren't safe for vaping and didn't come across that one.
Thanks man!
Actually, when I first started DIY I made an order from them so when I google NF concentrates it showed up on the first page.
They don't sell carrot cake here but they have tons of other NF flavors, plus a few other off the wall companies. Haven't ordered from them so I can't vouch for them.
I just ordered NF Carrot Cake, but I'm not ordering Jungle's yellow cake. I'm going to sub FW yellow cake. Luckily I have everything else. Any comment on using FW in place of JF? Can't wait to try this. It sounds awesome.
Looks great, but one question, where's the nuts in it. My Carrot Cake always had some nuts.
OOO also has a carrot cake flavor, and I've only found 1 vendor in all of Canada that stocks it. Damn.
This gets me highly jealous as I'm down to my last 2ml of mine.
The carrot cake I tried to emulated and the only one I've liked (and tried in recent years) had no nuts, so I didn't look to add nuts.
Looking back though if I were I'd play with maybe FA walnut+low FA nut mix, or maybe FW butter pecan.
Like I said, great looking recipe. Wifey uses Pecans in her real cake, and it's pretty much 'world famous'. If you'd like, I can pm you her real recipe.
I personally think any hint of nut would just make it killer. FA/FW walnut I'd think. YMMV.
Great recipe.
This looks very very good, thank you for sharing! Have you tried the NF Carrot Cake and if so what did you think? I've heard the carrot aspect is stronger than the spice?
I used NF carrot cake in the recipe. I taste the spice more than the carrot. The carrot is there, but it's a subtle sweetness to the flavor, where as the spice notes used in it are quite strong and pungent to the nose so they stand more in the forefront.
ohhh, I'm sorry. I was looking at it on the link to atf, and it says OOO for the brand there. Lol, so have you tried any carrot cake flavors other than NF?
I always think of the carrot cake icing as being tangy! I would suggest just .25% of tfa yogurt? I always add that to the cheesecake (graham) for cheesecakes, too!
Anyone else made this? It sounds great.. I played around with OOO carrot cake with similar ingredients for a month or so trying to come up with something vapeable but lost interest after 8 versions. Concluding that ooo carrot cake was IMO just not good.
Has there been any new variations or is this in your opinion complete?