Recipe and photograph – Dr Joan Ransley

This delicious crumbly, carrot and almond cake can easily double up as a dessert served with stewed fruit and yogurt. It doesn’t contain any flour and the sugar content is less than most cakes. The grated carrots add sweetness to the cake.

The almonds, pumpkin seeds, carrots and coconut all provide plenty of dietary fibre and complex carbohydrates which can help gut bacteria to metabolise and to keep the contents of the gut moving.

Including a diverse range of unprocessed foods, such as nuts, seeds and vegetables, in the diet has a positive effect on the microorganisms in the gut.

Method

Preheat the oven to 160°C/Gas mark 3. Line a 23cm springform cake tin with baking parchment – both bottom and sides.

Whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla essence together in a bowl until frothy. Add the ground almonds, coconut and cinnamon and stir well. Add the olive oil, grated carrots and pumpkin seeds and stir until the ingredients are well mixed. Pour or spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin and place it on a baking tray in the oven.

Cook the cake for an hour until the top of the cake feels firm to touch and a crust has formed. Check the cake after 40 minutes to see if the cake is cooking evenly. If it isn’t turn it round.

Remove the cake from the oven when cooked and allow to cool on a wire cooling rack. Dust the cake with icing sugar and serve.

Cooks tip

To make decorative mini carrots for the top of the cake, colour marzipan with a little natural, orange coloured food gel. Take nut sized pieces of marzipan and roll into carrot shaped lengths. Top the end of each carrot with a small sprig of parsley.

Variation

This cake can be made as individual muffins rather than a whole cake. Just pour the mixture into prepared muffin tins being careful not to overfill. Reduce the cooking time to 30 minutes.

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 Per Serving (70g)Per 100g
Calories (kCal/KJ)286 / 1185408 / 1694
Protein (g)710
Fat (g)2231
Saturated Fat (g)68.6
Carbohydrate (g)1319
Sugar (g)1218
Fibre (g)3.95.6
Sodium (mg)31.545
Salt equivalent (g)0.080.11
FODMAPs24g/20 almonds are high in galacto – oligosaccharides.
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