Raw Carrot & Orange Cake – It Rocks!

I have to pass this recipe on to you because it’s just so yummy! If you like carrot cake, but the “real” stuff is too sweet (or unhealthy) for you, this recipe is perfect! Not only does it not contain all those things I need to stay away from (flour, oil and sugar), but – believe it or not – it tastes very much like the real thing!

I found the recipe quite by accident. I had been searching for a recipe for something like raw mushroom pate because I had these great looking portobello’s in my fridge and I was anxious to try something new with them.

But the Universe had other plans for me. Somehow, as I was searching, I stumbled onto this great recipe for raw carrot cake! Now, understand, I’ve seen plenty of raw carrot cake recipes in my travels, but so far the pictures haven’t made me want to try them. This one is different. The picture above the recipe (see top of post) looks very appetizing, and the cake I made looks even better!

I won’t post the full recipe here…you can pop on over to Raw Food Chef Russell James’ blog when you’re ready. But I will provide a couple of tips from my experience making it.

First, I made it in an 8 x 8 baking pan, so mine came out a little higher than the one in the picture above. I’d say mine is about 1 1/2″ to 2″ high.

I made the “icing” first, and set it in the fridge while I prepared the base. That worked well, and the base was plenty firm enough that I didn’t have to worry about tearing up the cake as I iced it.

Last, I did not put it into the dehydrator, as the recipe suggests. I just finished the base and put the icing on it right away, covered it all and set it in the fridge.
About 10 minutes later I pulled it back out of the fridge so I could have a piece (I couldn’t wait!).

Getting that first piece out of the pan was a little tricky, but I managed to do it without mangling it too much. It really was no more difficult than getting the first piece of any kind of cake out of a pan like mine. And when I pulled the pan out of the fridge this morning to cut myself a piece for my lunchbox the rest of the cake was still in very good shape…no bleeding or falling over of stuff into the empty space I’d left the night before.

Here’s a picture of my version after I’ve been in it a few times 😉

That’s it! There are several ingredients, so there’s a lot of chopping to be done for the base, but you can chop each thing and dump it into the bowl right on top of the last thing you chopped, and then when you’re all done chopping, just mix it all together. Simple!

I would highly recommend this recipe to anyone who has ever moaned in ecstacy over a warm slice of carrot cake! (I’ll have more on the fate of the portobello’s in a later post.)