Tali's Tomatoes

Our team at work received an invite to attend Australia's Biggest Morning Tea at our previous office to raise money for the Cancer Council. Following this I decided to host my own ABMT at our office, and then I had a panic attack... I can't bake! I tried to make my partner some scones one day and they turned out more like pretzels. I have no idea how it happened!

So, following my original freak out I decided that I would make something healthy. There are so many amazing bloggers out there who are making vegan, gluten free and sugar free treats. During my search I came across Lee from Supercharged Foods and saw a recipe for a gluten free, sugar free, dairy free carrot cake. Following this I did a quick google search for a regular carrot cake recipe only to be shocked to discover the recipes have two cups of sugar in the cake, let alone the icing!

I ended up adding raisins to the recipe and made two healthy carrot cakes. The result was wonderful, everyone raved about it. Best of all we ended up raising $120 for the Cancer Council, who provide such a wonderful service for people with cancer and those who are close to someone who has/had cancer. I know my mum has called the helpline on a couple of occassions.

What you need to make one cake:

• 1 1/2 cups of gluten free flour of your choice i.e. almond flour (you can use regular flour if you are not avoiding gluten)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup dried raisins, soaked for half an hour until plump
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
• 3/4 teaspoon stevia powder (or 9 drops of stevia liquid)
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3 tablespoons grapeseed oil
• 4 tablespoons coconut cream
• 1 1/2 cups (200 g) grated carrot

Creamy coconut and cashew icing:

• 3/4 cup of raw or dry roasted cashews
• 250 g coconut cream
• The zest of one lemon, finely grated
• The juice of half a lemon
• 5 or 6 drops of stevia (to taste)

How to cook it:

• Preheat the oven to 170°C and grease a round cake tin with grapeseed oil. 
• In a bowl sift the flower, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda, add the walnuts, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and stevia (if powdered), and stir to combine. 
• Put the eggs, grapeseed oil and coconut cream in a separate bowl and whisk together. Add with the raisins to the dry ingredients and fold through.
• Squeeze the excess water out of the carrots with your hands and add them to the bowl. Fold in lightly. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes, or until the cake springs back when pressed in the centre. Take out of tin and place on a wire rack to cool.
• For the icing, place all ingredients minus the stevia, including just half of the coconut cream into a food processor or blender and turn on and off for a few minutes, slowly adding more coconut cream until the consistency is like crème fraiche (not runny, but not like thickened cream- you will see when I took the photo above it was a little bit runny, once I added some more cashews it thickened up significantly). Add the liquid stevia once you have the desired consistency and give it one last quick blend. Place the icing into the coldest section of your fridge (or freezer) to thicken.
• When the cake has cooled, spoon the icing all over the top.

Make it naughty: there is no need it is tasty enough! You can add more stevia to the icing to make it sweeter.

To host your own Biggest Morning Tea or donate to the Cancer Council go to http://www.biggestmorningtea.com.au/?gclid=CIe3qcDSpLACFU1spAodyywuWg