Moist Spelt Carrot Cake: one bowl

Sue Maree P -

Always a crowd-pleaser, who doesn't like a moist Spelt carrot cake? This recipe is super easy. The hardest part is grating the carrots. My secret is bribing my husband with “I'll bake you a carrot cake if you grate the carrots for me”. It works every time. This recipe was inspired by Donna Hay, but as for most of my cake recipes, I have tweaked the sugar and flour to suit my taste buds. I love the ease of throwing it all in one bowl – like magic it's all mixed.

Spelt Flour
Spelt flour is a good source of fibre. The texture is light and airy like wheat flour and can be substituted in baking cakes, cookies, pancakes and bread for a healthier alternative to wheat flour.

Ingredients

  • Carrots, grated and peeled – 400g (about 4 cups)
  • Spelt flour (or swap for plain flour) – 225g (about 1.5 cups)
  • Caster sugar or white sugar – 50g (1/4 cup)
  • Brown Sugar, light or dark – 150g (2/3 cup)
  • 2 eggs (or swap for 2 flax eggs* works well too)
  • Oil – 125ml (1/2 cup)
  • Baking powder – 1 teaspoon
  • Bicarbonate of soda – 1 teaspoon
  • Ground cinnamon – 2 teaspoons
  • Vanilla essence or extract – 2 teaspoons
  • Icing sugar for dusting

Cream Cheese Topping (optional)

  • Lemon – 1/2 juice
  • Icing sugar – 1-2 tablespoons
  • Soft cream cheese (make sure it is at room temperature) – 180g tub

Method

  1. Preheat oven 160˚C fan-forced and line or grease a round 23cm cake tin.
  2. Mix all ingredients together.
  3. Pour into your prepare tin.
  4. Bake for 40-50 mins (fan-forced). Check with a skewer at 40 mins.
  5. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.
  6. Add cream cheese icing if you like now or dust with icing sugar. Mix the lemon juice, icing sugar and cream cheese together then slowly add only to the top part of the cake, kind of a dabbing technique this looks the best.

*Flax Egg


The recipe is 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed (flax meal) + 3 tablespoons water = 1 flax 'egg'. Then rested in the refrigerator for 15 minutes or overnight. I then add this flax 'egg' in replace of normal eggs when I am baking a vegan recipe.