Carrot, Coconut & Walnut Cake
Description
A piece of cake that delivers all of your vitamin A and manganese for the day as well as a quarter of your iron, B2, B6, vitamin E, magnesium, phosphorus and zinc needs - and tastes great, too! It's a plant-based extravaganza of nutrient-dense ingredients along with just a couple of compromises (some flour and a small amount of coconut palm sugar).The list of suggested ingredients and quantities is a starting point - you could move it closer to whole-food plant-based by reducing the flour and increasing the almonds or by replacing the palm sugar with dates.
The next time we bake it we will be increasing the carrot and decreasing the coconut to further experiment with the recipe.
Ingredients
For the cake mixture:
- 4 very ripe bananas
- 280g self-raising flour - we used gluten-free
- 16 tbsp water (if using gluten-free flour)
- 150g ground almonds
- 100g walnuts
- 200g carrots - peeled and grated
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 120g coconut palm sugar
- 120 dessicated coconut
- 100g chopped dates
- 100g cashews (soaked in cold water for a few hours)
- a few strips of orange peel (I use a potato peeler)
- a couple of tsbp maple syrup to sweeten to taste - try it as you go to get the right sweetness for you
Directions
To make the cake:
- Pre-heat oven (180 fan)
- Blend the banana and place in a bowl
- Process the walnuts and dates together until you get a course crumble texture
- Add the walnut/date mixture to the banana
- Add the water, almonds, carrot, cinnamon, coconut, coconut palm sugar and mix well.
- Add the flour and gently mix. Place in a baking tin.
- Bake for about 30 minutes until the top of the cake is fairly firm to the touch but not toasted.
- Allow to cool before applying icing
- Drain and blend the cashews with the orange zest. Add maple syrup to taste.
- Smooth the icing over the cooled cake.
