Foodie's healthier carrot cake
Time for a new recipe. This time, it's a carrot cake!
Carrot cake. I always liked the idea, but whenever I found a recipe and looked at the long list of ingredients, I gave up and moved onto recipes with shorter lists. The carrot cakes I had at cafes from time to time were very yummy though, so I figured I had to give in one day. I did not think it would be this day though!
This morning, like every workday morning, my boyfriend turned on the tv to watch the news. Once he left for work, the tv was still showing me the news. The same news round I had seen three times by now. So, I figured I'd check what else was on, because I didn't feel like turning on the pc just yet.
I ended up switching to the food channel. Nigella Lawson was on and in her very seductive way, she showed us a couple of recipes of hers. One of them was a Venitian carrot cake. I watched and when she was grating the carrots, I was thinking 'Ugh, too much effort'. However, she was only grating two carrots. How hard could that be? She even told us we were allowed to use the food processor to make it easier on ourselves. She is very considerate that way!
I kept an eye on all of the other ingredients she used and then decided 'Hey, I have most of them!'. The two very important ingredients that were missing were carrots and eggs though. I looked up her recipe online to be sure I had the other essentials and then headed out toward the strawberry farm next door. Their little farm shop has plenty of veggies and also eggs from the neighbourhood. I bought what I needed and in the afternoon, I got to working on my recipe!
I decided to not go with her recipe completely. I didn't want to use sugar, so I used bananas and a bit of honey instead. I also wanted to make it a little better for my diet-that-I-am-not-actively-following-but-should, so I used buckwheat flour for half of the amount of flour I needed, minus a little, because buckwheat's a bit heavier I think.
Also, I didn't have golden sultanas, so I used raisins and I soaked them in water, because I don't have rum to cook them in. Oh, and I added cinnamon, because everything's better with cinnamon.
So basically, I made my own carrot cake, losely based on this other recipe. It turned out really well and it's a great, healthier snack.
Heck, I even grated the carrots manually. It's not as hard as it looks! A lot less annoying than zesting.
Enough chitchat, let's go to the recipe!
Ingredients
1 Cup buckwheat flour
1 Cup regular flour
1/2 Cup olive oil
2 Grated carrots
1/2 Cup raisins
2 Mashed bananas
1/4 Cup honey
3 Eggs
1 Tsp vanilla extract
Zest from one lemon
Juice from 1/2 lemon
1/2 Tsp nutmeg
1 Tsp Cinnamon
Directions
- Put your raisins in a bowl and cover them with lukewarm water.
- Grate your carrots and mash your bananas.
- Preheat your oven to 180C.
- Mix together the olive oil, honey, eggs and vanilla extract.
- Drain the raisins and add all of your ingredients to your oil and egg mixture. Mix until everything is well incorporated.
- Layer a springform with parchment paper and grease up the sides with olive oil.
- Put the mixture into the springform and spread out evenly.
- Put in the oven for about 40 minutes.
Enjoy!
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The ingredients sound pretty good.
I have to ask did this cake actually raise. It's looking a little dense and flat.
It certainly doesn't mean the cake didn't taste great!
Yeah, the cake didn't rise and it is pretty dense. Next time I'm going to try adding baking powder and see how that goes :D
Glad to see you baking again @playfulfoodie. Carrot cake is not a big favourite of mine but John loves it.
I like you adaptation of the recipe to suit your own tastes though and the diet-that-you-are-not-actively-following-but-should. I'm on a similar diet myself at the moment. I blame Easter! 😂
Have a fun day! 😊
They are an easy victim to blame, aren't they, those holidays? :D
Did you manage to get through all of your emails?
Have a good day!
I sort of cheated on the email @playfulfoodie. I took a couple of the 'to do' list but I did the ones that were really on my mind.
Now I've move onto my "must sort out my calendar" list. That's been going round in my head for months too. I have a couple of hotels to book and dates to arrange and childcare for my daughter to fit in and birthday celebrations to arrange. So again, it really needs to be done but I've been dragging my feet.
I was supposed to have a call at 2.00 p.m. but it seems like they are not going to "turn up" so I think I might go out to a cafe, with all my bits of paper and make a start on sorting dates. 😊
Interesting that it's pretty flat even with 3 eggs. Is it dense? I haven't tried buckwheat in baking. Does it have peculiar taste?
Looks good to be served with ice cream, yum!
I was expecting a little more rise too, but yeah, it is pretty dense instead. Might also have to do with the fact that I'm using bananas and oil, instead of butter and sugar?
Buckwheat does have a... hmm... hearty, nutty taste. Might not be the best addition to every recipe, but in other recipes, I do like the faint taste it adds. Biggest problem I've found with buckwheat is when I use it for cookies. It doesn't hold very well, so I get very crumbly cookies.
What a great idea! Home made banana ice cream perhaps :D
Bananas and oil still give me fluffy muffins, but maybe since muffin pan is not a flat pan.
Im intrigued to try buckwheat now 😊
Maybe I should whip them longer? Adding fluffyness still eludes me plenty of times :D
Baking powder would help, imo 😊
Aah yes, I forgot about baking powder! Thanks for the suggestion, I'll definitely have to try adding that next time :D
It looks delicious, I'll keep it in mind for my next recipe.
Thanks you! If you do end up making the cake, I'd love to hear what you think of it :D
Brilliant idea using bananas and honey. Out of interest, how many bananas would you substitute for say 1 cup sugar.
Thank you :-)
I would probably do 2 bananas and 1/4 cup of honey for a little extra sweetness. Either way, be sure to use very ripe bananas for as much sweetness as possible.
Thanks for that. I will give it a try.
Using food processors on carrots tends to prove a false economy of effort, as any short term gains in the grating are lost when it comes to washing up...
Haha, that's a very good point indeed! I do have a dishwasher, but I still wasn't looking forward to the extra effort in this case. The food processor is a great addition to my kitchen, but using it to grate two carrots went a bit too far, even for me :-)
Great idea, I use raw maple syrup and bananas or honey to substitute for refined sugar too.
Looks delicious
Thank you! I've never had raw maple syrup and can't get it very easily here, but I do want to try it some day :-)
Wow...bananas in a carrot cake! Must taste divine. The only ingredient I would leave out is nutmeg! I despised the taste when I was a kid and haven't had it since. I'm sure my palette has changed but I want to respect my inner child by not even trying it now! Haha...
Oh yes, it tastes really good! Sometimes, when using bananas in baking, the banana taste shines through too much, but in this recipe, it really makes a good whole with the rest and isn't overwhelming at all :-)
Hmm nutmeg is a pretty distinct taste. Though I'm sure you accidentally had it in plenty of cookies without even knowing! It's always added to cookie spices here atleast. But hey, just cinnamon works too ;-)
I love it and it is one of my favorite cakes, but never tried to make it. Looks nice and yummy :) All you need now is a cup of hot coffee :)
I'll take tea please :D
Yeah, I always figured it would take too much of an effort to make carrot cake, but this one went quite quickly. The ones in cafes usually have frosting too though, which I didn't do here.
You need to try many times until you get it the right way. Even if it doesnt look like the ones in the cafe, at least it will have the right taste you are looking for . Enjoy your weekend :)
you sure did a good job!
Haha, thank you very much :D