To treat myself for making it through four weeks of Paleo eating I whipped up a little Paleo Carrot Cake on the weekend.
It really didn't hold a candle to my favourite ever carrot cake at Bourke st Bakery in Sydney, but for a Paleo interpretation it was pretty good.
I started off with a recipe from
Make It Paleo, but adapted it and reduced some of the quantities when I realised that their carrot cake probably cost $40 in ingredients... Here's my interpretation.
Alecia's Paleo Carrot Cake
3 carrots, grated
3/4 cup pure maple syrup
3/4 cup coconut flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
15 pitted dates
5 eggs
2 tbsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup melted coconut oil
small tub of cream cheese
1 tsp ground ginger
a few walnuts to garnish
1) In a bowl, pour 1/2 cup of maple syrup and 1/4 cup water over grated carrots and pop in the fridge for an hour.
2) In a mixmaster bowl, combine sifted coconut flour cinnamon, salt and baking soda.
3) In a microwave safe bowl, add 1/4 cup water to the pitted dates and microwave for 30 seconds. Mash the mixture with a fork and then microwave for another 30 seconds and then mash again.
4) Add the mashed date mix to the flour mixture, and then add eggs, vanilla and coconut oil. Mix well.
5) Remove bowl from mixer and add the maple syrup marinated carrots. Fold through.
6) Grease a round springform pan with coconut oil and pour in the batter.
7) Bake in a 175 degree (Celsius) oven for 35 mins or until your skewer comes out clean.
8) In a small bowl, combine the cream cheese with 1/4 cup maple syrup and the ground ginger, and then when cake has cooled, frost cake with cream cheese icing and garnish with smashed walnuts.
If you're used to massively sugary carrot cakes then this isn't going to cut the mustard - but if you've been living on meat, veggies and green smoothies for four weeks then this is actually pretty good.
If I was going to make it again and wasn't being so Paleo-strict, I'd add 1/2 cup self raising flour so that it would raise a little more, and a little bit of icing sugar to the cream cheese frosting because I found the paleo version borderline savoury - but otherwise it was delish.
And since it was so god-damn healthy I didn't feel guilty polishing off a few slices to celebrate nothing really particular on a Sunday afternoon.