Gluten free, dairy free, carrot cake

gluten free, dairy free, carrot cake

It’s been over a few months that I have been living Paleo style. Although the transition for me is not that hard (tossing away breads, pasta, cakes, etc. are, in fact, a piece of cake. It’s the yogurts that I miss), I can’t force it on my kids.

In order to minimize, what I believe, is one of the most harmful “foods” that can go in my kids’ bodies, aka gluten, I try and make snacks, cakes, and munchies that are gluten free for them. These are not a major portion of their diet, but “that little something” when they need something sweet, when they have friends over, or when I have friends over 🙂

Experimenting before with gluten free chocolate cake that turned out awesome, I went ahead and concocted this carrot cake, after a regular recipe that I had, but of course, modified it. Once again, the star ingredient is the chickpea flour, that I discovered in the Indian store.

chickpea flour, also called Besan flour, or Gram flour, from the Indian store.

So if you’re looking for a gluten free cake, for any bunch of reasons (hey, Passover is coming up, so it’s kosher, too), give it a try.

you’ll need:

• greased 9″ round cake pan. I used the spring-form one.  A square pan will also do.
• 1.5 cups chickpea flour;
• half cup sugar;
• 1 Tbsp baking powder, aluminum free;
• pinch of salt (yap, salt);
• 2 tsp cinnamon powder;
• 2 tsp good quality vanilla extract;
• 3 heaped Tbsp coconut oil, in a small glass;
• 1 cup water;
• 2 cups grated carrots;
• 1 egg;
• good quality chocolate chips, optional.

love the colors

how-to:

Heat oven to 350°f.

Throw the chickpea flour in a bowl. Since this flour tends to have clusters, try to crush them with a tablespoon. Add the rest of the dry ingredients (not the chocolate chips), and mix well.

Add the grated carrots in the dry mixture, and mix so the carrots are covered well with the flour all over, and you see these cute orangy little chunks.

carrot chunks, cuties

Insert the glass with the coconut oil into the micro, run it for 20 seconds, mix the oil with a spoon until it’s melted. If not melted, insert for another 10 seconds. This should be enough. Add the coconut oil to the mixture, along with the water, and vanilla extract, and whisk slowly together, until smooth and all the flour dissolved. Now add the egg, and once again, whisk slowly together.

It’s not snow. It’s coconut oil in a cool blue glass, waiting to be melted

Pour the whole mixture onto the greased pan. Now is the time to add some chocolate chips if you want, right on top.

The whole thing goes on vacation in the oven, for 50-60 minutes. As with chickpea flour, don’t expect a high rise. Good things come in small packages.

notes:

• Grated carrots? I just throw them in the food processor. Life should be easy.
• I try to use coconut oil for almost all of my bakings/fryings, for two main reasons: (1) I stay away from bad industrial seed oils (corn, cottonseed, soybean, safflower, sunflower, canola, etc.) and use only, what I consider, good fat, for the reasons mentioned in the link about the gluten (above), and (2) coconut oil is not vulnerable to the oxidative damage that occurs with high-heat cooking using other fats.
• If you’d rather keep out of refined sugar, use Raw honey, or, soak a few dates in hot water for 30 minutes, and  throw them with the carrots in the food processor and don’t use any other sweetener. Feel free to adjust sweeteners according to your sweet tasting buds (most cake recipes call for 1.5 cups of sugar, but we don’t like it that sweet);
• when adding the water, you may notice that you need a bit more than 1 cup. you want to have a smooth fluidish batter.
• I mentioned 50-60 minutes in the oven, as every oven is different. Check after 50 minutes to see that the cake is dry on top, and golden.
• If you want to get fancy, real fancy, sprinkle some powdered sugar on top, once the cake has cooled down.

fancy carrot cake

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orange soup for Fall

It’s Fall. Not everything is orange yet, as we had a funny Summer. Here and there red leafs are showing for a moment or two before they take off and hit the ground. There is chill in the mornings. I want to feel like Fall.

orangey ingredients for fall soup

So I decided to make an orange soup that my daughter loves, to get into the Autumn atmosphere. And daughter: when you grow and have your own family and you’ll wanna feel like a little girl again, with your childhood kitchen smells, you have the recipe to do just that.  EZ.

you’ll need:

• 5 tbsp. olive oil
• 2 onions coarsely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 butternut squash, peeled, cut into coarse cubes
• 9-10 carrots, peeled, cubed
• 1 orange, rind grated
• 8 cups of vegetable broth
• salt and pepper

prepare:

• heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. add onions and garlic, cook while stirring frequently till soften.
• add the rest of the vegetables and cook for another 3 minutes.
• add broth, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. reduce heat, cover, and simmer 25-30 minutes, until vegetables are soft (but not too soft…).
• allow soup to cool, then puree with a hand blender.

variations: add some sour cream to the soup; substitute the vegetable broth with chicken broth; add sweet potato instead of 5 carrots; add saffron. play around and have fun finding your special aroma.

yummy orange soup

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