Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Paleo Carrot Cake

I saw a friend and fellow Crossfitter, Sherry Fushimi, this weekend at Southwest Regionals and she told me she found a tremendous recipe for a paleo-friendly carrot cake.  She was kind enough to bring me the recipe the next day and I went home that night and made it.  She was right.  It's tremendous.  I brought the cake (without frosting) to work and to my Book Club and shared it with my non-paleo eating friends and they also loved it!  The recipe is another masterpiece by Elana Amsterdam (http://www.elanaspantry.com/) but I modified it just slightly.  You can find the original recipe on her website if you prefer.


Photo stolen from http://www.elanaspantry.com/ because this is the most delicious looking photo I have ever seen and there is no way I could duplicate or improve it.

Paleo Carrot Cake

Ingredients:
3 cups blanched almond flour
1 teaspoon celtic sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
5 eggs
½ cup raw, unfiltered honey
¼ cup grapeseed oil (or almond oil)
3 cups carrots, grated (I used my food processor after hand grating 1 cup and nearly taking my thumb off)
1 cup dates, chopped
1 cup walnuts, coarsly chopped

Method:
In a large bowl, combine almond flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg
In a separate bowl, mix together eggs, honey and oil
Stir carrots, dates and walnuts into wet ingredients
Stir wet ingredients into dry
Place batter into 2 well greased, round 9 Inch cake pans (I used two 8x4 bread pans)
Bake at 325° for 35 minutes (I baked them for about 40 minutes, but check them at 35 minutes by inserting a toothpick in the center and ensuring it comes out clean)
Cool to in pans for one hour and spread with coconut cream frosting if you like.  You can find that recipe at http://www.elanaspantry.com/coconut-cream-frosting/
Serve to everyone you know because they all will like it.