This cake is crazy good! I did a little dance around the apartment when I tasted it. It has the consistency of boxed cake but with a fresh baked at home flavor instead of all the processed flour and sugar that you get with the store bought stuff. And it's super easy to make! The cook time would probably have to be adjusted a bit but I think this would also make a great layer cake if you doubled the frosting recipe. I'll try that next time.
I adapted my recipe from one I came across on a really great food blog called Love and Lemons
cake:
1 1/4 cups white spelt flour
1 cup gluten free all purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoons nutmeg
1 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup unsweetened natural applesauce
1 cup unsweetened plain almond milk (I make mine at home using this recipe from My New Roots)
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 cup coconut sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup (melted) coconut oil
2 cups grated carrots (about .75 lb carrots before grating)
frosting:
1/2 cup macadamia nuts (soaked in water overnight or for 8 hours, drained and rinsed)
1/2 cup cashews (soaked in water overnight or for 8 hours, drained and rinsed)
1/4 cup unsweetened plain almond milk
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
To make the cake: Preheat oven to 325 and grease a 9 x13 baking pan with coconut oil.
If you have a food processor definitely use your grating attachment to speed up the grating process. Set aside grated carrots.
In a large bowl use a whisk to combine the flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.
After melting the coconut oil down to a liquid state in a double boiler or in the microwave add honey to the warm coconut oil to make it more of a liquid consistency.
In another bowl, whisk together the applesauce, almond milk, vanilla, almond extract, coconut sugar and the melted oil and honey mixture.
Mix the liquid ingredients into the large bowl with the dry ingredients.
Fold in the carrots and stir until just combined.
Add cake mixture to the greased baking pan.
Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cooking time will depend on your oven and elevation but mine was done at the 35 min mark.
Let cake cool completely before frosting... this part is always torture for me...
To make the frosting: Drain and rinse the macadamia and cashew nuts then combine the nuts and all other frosting ingredients into a high speed blender (I use a Blendtec and I use my smaller jar attachment). Blend on a low speed till mixed and then increase speed until the frosting is a smooth consistency. You will have to scrape the side with a spatula a few times between blending. I haven't tried to make this frosting in my food processor but I imagine that you could use that instead if you don't have a high speed blender. Place the blended frosting in the fridge while the cake cools. It will come to a much more frosting-like consistency once chilled. Then, once the cake has cooled and the frosting is chilled slather that tasty frosting all over the top of the cake and dig in!
Enjoy, and accept that you might take the whole thing out sooner than you might like. But if you do have leftovers, store them covered in the fridge.
