Did anyone say cake?! If you’re anything like me you’ll be smiling ear to ear right now. Can cake be your favourite food? I think it’s mine, no particular flavour or type just cake. I’ve been missing cake since I can no longer order it for dessert when eating out or pick up one up from the supermarket. There always seems to be a no no ingredient in the mix. After having bought a 5 inch cake tin earlier this week I had to try making my own gluten free and low FODMAP cake. So I dug out my old carrot cake recipe and decided to give it a go. I used to be a good baker but now I’m faced with all these glutenless flours and I feel lost. Help! I have no idea how they work… honestly each one should come with a manual. I’m still trying to learn and discover how they all work in comparison to wheat flour.  For the time being I’m sticking with gluten free all purpose flour blends which seem to work well when you substitute them for wheat flour. I want to try making some nice crusty bread next but the thought is so scary! Bread making is all about working the gluten… What do  you do when there is no gluten to work? No gluten = little kneading? probably. I might give it a go in a few days. Wish me luck! A lot of it please. What has your experience been like so far? Please do share in the comments below 🙂

Back to the issue at hand; carrot cake. After making the batter and incessant peeking through the oven door, trying to see how its coming  along and fighting urges to open the oven door it’s finally done. Here it is. And now, I must wait until it’s cooled sufficiently to frost it, while all I want to do is devour it.

I have succeeded! I’m sitting here writing the rest of this post gobbling up carrot cake while drinking a cuppa of cinnamon tea. I’m quite pleased with the result. It’s moist and delicious as I remember it to be and nothing about it says gluten free. However I did not quite wait long enough for it to cool and my frosting started to melt… ooops. But I just couldn’t wait any longer! I’ve been cake deprived long enough and I shan’t wait any longer.

Carrot Cake – makes a small 5 inch cake, serves 4.

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 75g dark brown sugar
• 75g gluten free flour blend with xantham or guar gum. If not add 1/4 teaspoon of xantham gum.
• 150g grated carrot
• 40g ground nuts such as ground peanuts or walnuts. May also use ground almonds if you tolerate these. Just blitz the nuts in a blender until they’re finely ground. Be careful not to blend too long or you will end up with nut butter instead.
• 1 1/2 eggs
• 56g melted butter or margarine or vegetable oil
• 7g baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ginger
• 15g raisins – soak overnight in some water. This will help keep them and the cake moist after baking

For the cream cheese frosting:

• 25g butter
• 150g icing sugar
• 65g lactose free cream cheese

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170C; not fan assisted.
2. Sieve flour and baking powder.
3. Add the ground nuts, spices and grated carrots and mix them all together.
4. In a separate bowl whisk the sugar and eggs together until light and fluffy.
5. Add the eggs to the flour and carrot mixture. Incorporate by using a wooden spoon.
6. Add melted butter and incorporate it well in the mix.
7. Butter or oil the tin so that the cake doesn’t stick.
8. Put the mix in the tin and place in a preheated oven at 170C. Bake for approximately 45 minutes.
9. For the frosting whisk the butter and sugar together until there are no large lumps of butter.
10. Add the cream cheese and whisk it in on medium speed until it becomes soft and fluffy.
11. Chill the frosting in the fridge and allow the cake to cool before putting the frosting on. If like me you cannot wait and can deal with a bit of melted frosting go ahead and skip this step!
12. Cut the cake into two or three and fill with frosting. After cutting mine I decided three would have looked better. Place the tiers together and apply frosting to the top. Decorate as you please. I sprinkled mine with chopped walnuts.
13. Devour!

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