Spiced Carrot Bundt Cake

Don’t you just love a cake that makes you feel like you’re making a ‘healthy choice’!

Using vegetables in my baking is something I love to experiment with. The idea of using ingredients that you wouldn’t ordinarily use or associate with dessert to create a sweet flavour profile is definitely a personal challenge of mine.
Zucchini brownies, carrot and ginger cookies, beetroot loaf, sweet potato and cassava cake…. the list goes on!

Now, one of my personal favourite sweet recipes is carrot halwa. Think warm strands of creamy, buttery carrot, lightly spiced and flecked with pistachios and almonds. Even the thought of it has my mouth watering.

Well this recipe was inspired by my absolute love of carrot halwa (and also the jealousy I felt toward all the lucky souls who could tuck into the Sarah Lee carrot sheet cakes that can be purchased from the frozen food aisle).

Deliciously spiced, gluten free and full of carrots, raisins, pistachios and pecans, this cake has it all!
I hope you try it and love it as much as I do… and remember, it’s made with vegetables, so it’s basically salad!
Just kidding, it’s definitely cake and contains sugar, but hey, everything in moderation.

SPICED CARROT BUNDT CAKE

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups Gluten Free Self Raising Flour, plus 1 tbsp to coat raisins and nuts
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp mixed spice (same as pumpkin pie spice)
1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 cup rapadura sugar (you can use brown sugar if you cannot find rapadura)
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
3 cups grated carrot
3/4 cup roughly chopped pecans
1/2 cup roughly chopped pistachios
1/3 cup roughly chopped raisins

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius and prepare a bundt cake pan by lining with grease proof paper.
2. In a large bowl combine all ingredients except the pecans, pistachios and raisins and mix well.
3. In a separate bowl add pecans, pistachios and raisins and toss through 1 tbsp flour. Mix until they are all lightly dusted in flour, discard any excess flour and add the coated pistachios, pecans and raisins to the mixture and mix well.
4. Pour the batter into the bundt cake pan and place in the oven. Bake at 180 degrees celsius for 35 – 40 minutes.

Now, you can eat the cake as it is and it is perfectly delicious, or you can be a little decadent and coat this delightful morsel in lashings of cream cheese icing. YUM!

Cream Cheese Icing
Ingredients:
250g lactose free cream cheese (or any cream cheese you like really)
60g margarine/butter/nuttelex (any spread you like), at room temperature
1/2 cup icing sugar

Method:
1. Place all ingredients into a stand mixer and beat together until a smooth and creamy mixture forms.
2. Spread/pipe over your cake.