The Nutritious Ingredient Julie Andrews Used To Frost Her Favorite Carrot Cake

After obsessively watching "The Princess Diaries" through much of my childhood, I can't think of Julie Andrews without picturing a queen. And if Queen Julie Andrews is topping her favorite carrot cake with frosting made from tofu, you bet I'm doing the same — and you should, too!

Somewhere, somehow, tofu unfortunately got a bad rap, and understandably so, since it's a block of bean curds. But like anything, when you know how to prepare tofu properly, it makes a world of difference in taste while providing a hit of protein, vitamins, and minerals— the stuff we're all trying to get more of these days. Let's be honest, most of us eat cake just for the frosting, so why not have your frosting with some blood-sugar-balancing protein, too? On an eight-slice carrot cake, the tofu frosting adds about 7 grams of protein to each slice, along with calcium, iron, potassium, and isoflavones — plant compounds shown to reduce the risk of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. 

Traditionally, carrot cake is topped with cream cheese frosting, which gets its creamy, sweet, spreadable consistency from softened butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract. However, tofu is a healthier alternative, and Andrews' recipe simply combines 1 pound plus 2 ounces of extra firm tofu, not drained (about 1¼ 8-ounce blocks), with 2 tablespoons of honey, the zest of a medium orange, a splash of orange extract, and ¼ cup of toasted shredded coconut in a high-speed blender until smooth.

By the look and taste of this silky frosting, no one would ever know it was made from nutrient-rich tofu. As a bonus, it's also dairy-free, egg-free, and low in sugar — about 5 grams of sugar per cake slice — mostly from the small amount of honey used in the recipe. This is a great frosting to use when serving those with dietary restrictions. 

This frosting can also be used to top other cakes or as a template to create different flavored, high-protein frostings. For example, replace the orange zest with the zest of a small lemon, swap the orange extract with what Ina Garten considers the best store-bought vanilla extract, or leave out the shredded coconut for a lemon-vanilla frosting that would pair perfectly with a white, lemon, or zucchini cake. For a chocolate frosting, leave out the zests and extracts, and add ½ cup of unsweetened cocoa powder, along with an extra ⅓ cup of honey. Slather over your favorite chocolate cake.

There's also nothing that says this frosting can only be eaten on cake. Use it just as you would any other frosting — for cookies, majorly fudgy brownies, as a dip for graham crackers or fruit, or simply by the spoonful when you have a craving for something sweet that's also nourishing.