Sugar Free Carrot Cake with Cashew Frosting

This recipe uses freshly ground millet and buckwheat as a wheat flour substitution. These whole grains are ground into flour using a coffee grinder or your Vitamix blender. Millet and buckwheat are both gluten free and full of dietary fiber. When you grind them yourself they’re fresher and a lot less expensive than purchasing “specialty” flours.

One of the important tricks of gluten free baking is getting your bread or cake to rise. This recipe uses the chemical reaction of lemon juice and baking soda to produce a good rise and a moist, fluffy cake. Lemon juice is very acidic and baking soda is very alkaline. When they come into contact with each other they start to bubble and fizz, releasing gas into the batter and causing it to rise.

For this reason, have your pans oiled and the oven preheated so you can pour the batter in and get it cooking as soon as it’s ready. If the batter sits out before being cooked it will lose its bubbly rising power.

Top your sugar free carrot cake with this scrumptious dairy free icing – the cashews make a creamy base and lemon adds the tartness to taste like traditional cream cheese frosting.

Sugar Free Carrot Cake

(use organic whenever possible)

Wet Ingredients:

3 cups grated carrots

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cups safflower oil

1 teaspoon lemon rind

¾ cup juice and pulp of lemon

1 ½ cups raisins (soaked, retain ½ cup soak water)

1 tablespoon flax meal (soaked in 2 tablespoons water)

1 cup millet

1 cup buckwheat

2 teaspoons baking soda

¼ teaspoon sea salt

2 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon allspice

1/3 cup raisins

1/3 cup crushed walnuts

1. Soak raisins in purified water for 30-90 minutes before you’re ready to start. Save ½ cup soaking water.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
3. Combine flaxmeal with 2 tablespoons of water and let sit for 5 minutes.
4. Blend soaked raisins and ½ cup of retained soak water to form a paste.
5. Combine all wet ingredients in a large mixing bowl and stir well.
6. Grind millet and buckwheat into flour using a coffee grinder or Vitamix blender.
7. Combine all dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl and stir well.
8. Add dry ingredients to wet and stir well.
9. Fold in whole raisins and crushed walnuts.
10. Pour into oiled muffin tins or cake pans.
11. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes for muffins or 45-50 minutes for cake. Test with a knife or toothpick – it will come out clean when the bread is done.

Cashew Frosting

1 cup cashews (soaked for 30 minutes)

juice of 1 large lemon

3 pitted fresh dates

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

purified water

1. Soak cashews for at least 30 minutes but no longer than 60 minutes.
2. Combine all frosting ingredients in a food processor or Vita-Mix blender and begin blending – add water slowly until the mixture becomes creamy and reaches desired consistency.
3. Frost cake after it has cooled.

Makes icing for one 9” layer.

• For a sweeter frosting, add 1 tablespoon of maple syrup or 8 drops of stevia.
• Dates may be substituted with 3-4 tablespoons of raisins. Use golden raisins to keep frosting color lighter.