Spiced Whole Wheat Carrot Cake

For my guest post today, I have Tina Basu showcasing her version of a healthy Spiced whole wheat carrot cake.

Why a Healthy Cake

Cakes are heavenly – admit it or not but a sinful cake always uplifts your mood. That however, not necessarily is great for your waistline or your got. Ever since I started baking for my son – who is two at this moment, I have been looking to make the cakes healthier. I try to avoid refined flower as much as possible because too much refined flour doesn’t help your gut. You can bake absolutely amazing stuffs by replacing refined flour with whole wheat flour, oats flour, almond flour or even semolina. Don’t believe me? Check these semolina and oats breakfast muffins – which turned out absolutely great. So here I am sharing a healthier version of this classic English Carrot Cake recipe.

What are the spices used?

The carrot cake is perfect for your evening tea time. You can enjoy it just like it without any frosting with your tea or coffee because it has all the nice flavours of aromatic spices. This recipe calls for cinnamon powder and clove powder. If you don’t have them, you can dry roast an inch of cinnamon bark and 5-6 cloves and dry grind in a mixer – that works perfectly well with it.

Why is the Spiced Whole wheat carrot cake healthy?

• No refined flour – that has been replaced with whole wheat flour which we call atta -  yes you can bake with atta!
• No butter – I am using regular vegetable oil.
• Has loads of nuts – I am using toasted walnuts and almonds.
• Carrots of course.
• You can replace sugar with honey – if you want.

Ingredients

1.   Eggs – 2 whole

2.   Vanilla essence – 1 teaspoon

3.   Vegetable oil / canola oil – 180 ml

4.   White sugar – 3/4^th cup powdered

5.   Brown sugar – 1/4^th cup

6.   Whole wheat four – 112 g

7.   Baking soda – 1 teaspoon

8.   Baking powder – 3/4^th teaspoon

9.   Salt – a pinch

10. Ground cinnamon – 1 teaspoon

11. Ground cloves – 1/4^th teaspoon

12. Finely grated carrots – 1 and 1/4^th cup

13. Walnuts and almonds – ½ cup toasted and crushed

14. Butter/oil – for greasing the baking tin

Method

• Pre-heat oven at 180C/ 356F
• Sieve together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl and set aside.
• In a mixing bowl break the eggs and add vanilla essence.
• Add vegetable oil to the eggs and beat with a hand mixer for 30 seconds on slow speed. If you are mixing with a whisk, beat till the mixer becomes frothy and dense.
• Add white and brown sugar gradually and mix again with a hand mixer for 30 seconds. Try not to dump all of the powdered sugar at one go or you will have a cloud of sugar all over you!
• Add the whole wheat flour mix in two parts and fold with a spatula.

Pro Tip: Don’t over beat cake batter when you are adding flour. Over beating will result in a tough and hard cake. I always switch to a spatula and fold batter when I am adding flour.

•  Once the flour is folded add shredded carrots, spices and crushed nuts and fold again till everything is incorporated.
• Let this batter rest for 10 minutes while you grease and line a baking tin with baking paper or a parchment paper. You can simply grease with butter and pour the batter, but I prefer using a baking paper – it makes un-moulding very easy and saves a lot of effort on washing up!

• Pour the batter in the lined tin. I am using a square tin – it gives good chunky portions, you can use any shape or size.
• Bake it for 40 minutes at 180C/365F
• I use the convection mode in my microwave for baking. If you are using a stand-alone oven, at 20 minutes mark take the tin out and turn it to the other side to ensure even baking and coloring.
• Let is cool for 15 minutes on a wire rack before slicing.
• Dust some confectioners’ sugar or icing sugar and garnish with chopped walnuts.
• You can also enjoy the spiced whole wheat carrot cake with some cream cheese frosting. But I prefer it just like this.

I hope you enjoyed this simple healthy classic recipe. Sometimes, a slice of cake, a hot piping cup of coffee and a novel makes life easier – if not for ever, for few hours for sure!

Let me know how you enjoyed once you have baked this rustic earthy carrot cake.

About Tina Basu

Tina is a self-confessed food obsessed girl and all her love for food is reflected in her food blog Twinkling Tina Cooks. She is a dessert lover and shares a variety of recipes on her food blog. She shares family recipes, classic renditions and innovative functional recipes on her blog. Tina Basu is also a freelance writer, author, blogger and a graphic designer and a food enthusiast. When she is not running around a little hyper active munchkin she blogs at Tina Basu – Being Real Not Perfect where she writes, fictions, lifestyle pep talks girly stuffs and hosts link parties and tutorials. Tina has been in the FMCG industry for over seven years working as a trade marketing and branding expert before quitting her job and becoming the lady boss in her own venture.

This post is written for the December bloghop #mymojo with Shalzmojo

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