CARROT CAKE REVIEW No 32 - Oh, Prithee Try My Patience Not!

Cromer, Norfolk.

I mean, look at it. This feeble cake in its ill fitting paper dish. Already half sagging just with the gentle pressure of resting in it. It makes your heart doubly sink, that such a thing was thought decent to be brought into this world.  

Now, I like this place they try their best to act ethically and responsibly. They run a great little outfit, friendly, well organised and plugged in to their community. Going there is one of our favourite morning treats before work. I've written in rhapsodic detail in a previous cake review about their carrot cake, made by her Mum.  May she live long and prosper. It is the bees knees - made out of carrot.

And then there was this! Well, I guess they just needed to do it. Get the whole vegan carrot bake idea, off their chest, out of their system, a tick on their to do list - done. What's not to like? Well quite a lot actually. ' I'd be interested in what you think of it' they said to me. Obviously had not read any of my scathing reviews of other carrot tray bakes. Not to mention my general feelings about a carrot cake/tray bake in its intrinsically aberrative form . Otherwise, they'd have thought twice.

But, ever the willing customer I purchased this cake produced in accord with the ethics committee for saving the penguins from buying a freezer. Trying my best not to prejudge, to experience it lightly, free of bias or favour. Failed, at the first hurdle. Yes, we are back to the look of it. A smattering of chopped nuts, that's sort of OK. But it rests upon the most thin and pallid of frostings. As if drained of all life. Though the colour and texture look to pass muster, it is as if there's a palpable sense of something on the very edge of death. Ready to redissolve into its chemical constituents and sink into the cake

This was off putting. I almost dreaded the moment of proffering it to my lips, surrendering it to the mastication of my teeth, rolling it upon my tongue to savour its flavour. Otherwise known as putting it in my mouth. One has to shove these things in one's gob, or you'll never know will you? It might be a f-ing delight. So I persist out of a weighty sense of it being my duty, I might add. Oh, my giddy aunt, what have I done? 

It was like everything I've ever disliked in these ruddy confected vegan/ gluten free/ dairy free carrot bakes. All in one slice. First, let us be very very clear, this is a tray bake. And we know that offends Golden Rule No 6. But it has to be a tray bake because it would rapidly deflate under the weight of an actual layered structure. It has that all pervading sense of a bland carrot cake, being salvaged from tastelessness by adding  a boat load of spice. Which breaks Golden Rule No 1. Plus, its gluten/dairy free - Golden Rule No 3. I gag, but I do the deed and eat it. If you don't know what all that means I refer you to my Carrot Cake Review No 23, where I lay them all out in livid detail.

All I can say in its favour, is that it was moist. But moist in the way the Humber estuary is. As soon as cake hit saliva you'd got a silty sludge clogging up your food channel. I've mentioned before the 'Farley's Rusk Effect' of non traditional flours. Yeh, baby food. Here was an example classique. The frosting tasted as though it had been made from the spontaneous ejaculation of a distressed polar bear, metaphorically, not actually of course. Think of the animals. Though no banana in the bake mix. So we should be thankful for that small mercy. 

Gloop though! gloop!! gloop sticking to the roof of my mouth. Too polite to spit it out, I manfully attempted to swallow it, fearful lest it might cause a life threatening intestinal blockage. It was fine, but it did noticeably land heavily in the pit of my stomach, and rested there much longer than was comfortable or desirable on a chilly morning.

I gave them my full and frank review.  We haven't seen even a whispered suggestion of this cake since. Hopefully it has been ethically euthenised.

CARROT SCORE - 2/8