Low Fat Vegan Carrot Cake
Low fat carrot cake is my favorite dessert. As a kid, I was always fascinated with the carrots made out of frosting that adorned the top of the cake.
This version, made with carrots, walnuts, whole grains, and applesauce is reasonably healthy (for a dessert, that is).
Prep time: 20 min; Total time: 60 min
Ingredients
- 2 c. spelt flour or whole wheat flour
- 2 tsp. baking soda
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 2 tsp. cinnamon
- 1 tsp. salt
- 2 c. grated carrots
- 1 c. skim milk, soy milk, or rice milk
- 1 1/2 c. applesauce
- 1 c. maple syrup, Grade B
- 1/2 c. crushed walnuts (optional)
First, mix all dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl: flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
Next, grate the carrots. I use a food processor instead of grating them by hand. Once this is done, preheat the oven to 350F.
Add the carrots and the rest of the ingredients except for the walnuts to the flour mixture. Mix until "just mixed." Last, mix in the walnuts.
Transfer to a greased 13x9x2 pan. Bake for 40-50 min at 350F until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.
Cool on a counter for 30 min and then frost with cream cheese frosting.
Serves: 12 (large slices)
Per serving:* 222 calories; 3.8g fat; 4g protein; 43g carbs; 4g fiber; 5.5% RDA calcium; 9% RDA iron
*Nutrition information does not include frosting. It does include walnuts and it assumes the milk used is fortified soy milk.
Tips
If you do not have spelt or whole wheat flour, you can use enriched flour. You can also substitute
soy flour for up to 2/3 c. of the flour.
If you want, add 1/2 c. raisins or add a small amount (1/4 c. or so) of crushed pineapple.
If you do not have applesauce on hand, you can use organic canola oil instead. This will greatly increase the amount of fat in the cake, but it will get the job done. (Choose organic canola oil because non-organic canola oil may be genetically-modified. Organic canola is not GMO.)
If you do not have maple syrup, you can substitute 1 c. honey or 1 1/3 c. sugar.
To decrease the fat in this cake, leave out the walnuts. However, walnuts have the "good" kind of fat and there's not an offensive amount of fat in each slice.
If you have stevia available, you can use that in place of maple syrup to reduce the number of calories in the cake. However, be sure to increase the amount of soy milk and/or applesauce accordingly if you do so.
Another way to limit the fat and/or calories in this cake is to serve it without frosting. The nutrition information above is for the cake alone (without frosting).
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