Bliss-ful Carrot Cake

I love food. I love baking. Ergo, I love recipes.

Also, ergo, I need to exercise a lot more. Soon.

But before then, I’d like to share one of my favorite recipes with you, on this inaugural Favorite Recipes Friday post. My latest book, His Reluctant Rancher, continues the story of Three River Ranch. Two of the characters that populate this world are twins Bliss and Blythe, older women who wander around looking after people, scolding and feeding them as they see fit.

They also nurse a mysterious grudge between them, which will be revealed in time!

In His Reluctant Rancher, Bliss brings the Gamble family a carrot cake that she says is far better than the one Blythe serves at her bed & breakfast. Now, I don’t know Blythe’s recipe, but I do know this one, and it truly rocks. It’s the cake I made for birthdays when my girls were small. Because it’s so chock full of nutrition, I could relax in the knowledge that even if it’s all they ate all day, it would be okay.

“I Wish I Knew How to Quit You, Wheat!”

NOTE: since I first wrote this, I’ve read Wheat Belly, the premise of which is that wheat is responsible for most – if not all – of modern humanity’s pain and suffering. You know, diabetes, high cholesterol, painful joints, fuzzy brain, bad hair, bad moods, slow drains, slugs and possibly that irritating syndrome in which whatever line you’re in always moves slower than the ones beside you. Aaaaanyway. Wheat. I figure I’m carb sensitive but am not quite ready to part with it entirely. We’re working on a trial separation, a weaning situation. The recipe below has been modified to reflect this.

 

This is from the La Leche League Whole Foods Cookbook. Can you tell that my girls liked to work alongside me? I’ve modified it somewhat, as I almost always do, but here’s the gist:

2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour (I used 1 1/4 cups flour, and 1 cup coconut flour)

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

3/4 cups oil (I use canola or olive)

3/4 cup liquid honey

5 eggs

3 cups grated carrot (or zucchini, which I haven’t tried, but would probably be great, too.)

1 cup canned unsweetened crushed pineapple (save the juice for the frosting)

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup shredded coconut

Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients. Stir it all together. Put into greased and floured pan of your choice. (This makes a fairly large cake.) Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes. Cool, then frost with cream cheese icing. (Cream cheese, pineapple juice and enough icing sugar to make it taste good.) Then I covered the top with coconut because the frosting seemed a little gooey.

Boom. Bliss-ful Carrot Cake.