Carrot cakes are ubiquitous, and I find many of them to be cloyingly sweet and too full of stuff like raisins and pineapple. I especially hate it with cocoanut for some reason. This carrot cake was supposed to keep the overall feel and spicing, but to be pure carrot cake and only a little sweet.
Picture to come after I bake this again and before it gets eaten!
I have been experimenting with adding nut and seed mixtures to baked goods after reading Peter Reinhart’s latest gluten free cookbook. He uses all artificial sweeteners, which I generally avoid, so I am sticking with mostly sugar on the premise that you shouldn’t eat too much cake anyway. I have found his cakes a little too fragile, so I have used his approach of the nut / seed mixtures and modified my flour to incorporate more nuts and seeds. Because nuts and seed are higher in fats than other flour ingredients, I have found that reducing fat makes a better outcome. I have made this cake several times now to rave reviews and requests for the recipe, so here it is. I am also trying a few more modifications so I may update this later. Also, don’t be alarmed that after a few hours the carrots oxidize and they look like little green specks. I have usually added buttercream icing on just the top, but the cake is delicious without this as a less sweet nibble with coffee or tea.
Carrot Cake – Gluten Free
Developed by Shelley at Riverleafoods.com
| Ingredients | Method |
| 1 ¼ cup Family Mix gluten Free Flour
¼ cup sunflower meal 2 Tbl ground flax seeds 6 TBL sesame meal ¼ cup ground almonds 1 ½ tsp cinnamon ¼ tsp nutmeg 1 ½ tsp soda 1 ½ tsp baking powder 1 tsp guar gum |
Note: all the meal ingredients were ground in my little spice blender.
Mix all dry ingredients and set aside. |
| 1/3 cup butter
½ cup brown sugar ½ cup white sugar 2 eggs 1 tsp vanilla ½ cup buttermilk 2 cups grated carrots |
Cream eggs and sugar until fluffy as you would for any cake. Add eggs and blend until incorporated. Add buttermilk and flour mixture in stages.
Add carrots to batter. The batter will be firm and sticky. Place in cake pan, 9” springform or medium rectangular (one size smaller than 9 x 13). If needed wet fingers and press the batter down in the pan. |
| Bake at 350 until it looks well done. The nut mixtures tend to need a little more baking time or they can end up undercooked and soggy.
Ice with any buttercream frosting just on the top. I used 1 cup icing sugar to ½ cup butter. The overall effect of this cake should be just slightly sweet. |
|
Family Mix Flour
1cup garfava flour (i use Bob’s Red Mill)
1 1/2 cup arrowroot flour
1 1/2 cup cornstarch (or sometimes I use 1 cup cornstarch and 1/2 cup buckwheat)
1/4 cup amaranth flour
1/4 cup quinoa flour
(you can use just quinoa or just amaranth and then use a 1/2 cup)
