(Healthier) Carrot Cake

I didn't go full Paleo on this recipe. Frankly, I didn't want to spend the money on all the extra almond flour if it ended up tasting nasty. But this one has whole wheat flour, almond flour, no refined sugar, and coconut oil. I rank it as quite a lot better for you than just plain carrot cake - healthy enough to eat for breakfast :) And if it always turns out the same way this batch did...slightly crunchy top with a nice, moist inside, it won't last long in this house. It's a slightly more nutty taste, and one child didn't care for the difference, but I though it was pretty darn perfect.

(Healthier) Carrot Cake

6-8 cups of baby carrots
2 cups white whole wheat flour
3 cups almond flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
2 cups coconut sugar
1 cup coconut oil
9 eggs
1 cup maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Use a little bit of coconut oil to grease five large aluminum foil loaf pans.

Use your Vita-Mix to wet chop the carrots: put half of them at a time in the Vita-Mix, cover with water, turn on and increase to level 6, and process until they're all chopped up. Pour into a sieve to let the water drain out.

In a separate bowl, combine the flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and coconut sugar. When it's all uniformly mixed, add in the coconut oil. You can use a wooden spoon, mixer, or pastry knife thing to squish it all up until it's distributed evenly with very small chunks (like when you're making pie crust).

Add in the eggs and the maple syrup and stir until the batter is all the same consistency. Fold in the chopped carrots. Divide up the batter into the five loaf pans (approximately two cups of batter each). Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Here at a higher altitude, that turned out to be about 55 minutes. It could be as little as 30 minutes for you.

-- This recipe is loosely based off the Carrot Cake recipe in my Better Home and Gardens Cookbook.