Sprouted Carrot Cake with Lemon Maple Icing

Felix turned two last week, and we opted for a small get-together with simple food. Daylon made lasagnas and salads, and his mom brought some appetizers and wine. My parents gave Fe an ice cream maker and whipped up some outrageous raw-milk maple vanilla ice cream.

I was in charge of the cake, and played around with a few different recipes to come up with a sprouted carrot cake with lemon cream cheese frosting.

It was a surprising hit. My friend Julia (who, granted, is a raw foodist and vegan) said it was the best cake of her life, although our neighbor Rob described it as tasting “healthy.”

The trick to this cake is tons and tons of cream cheese icing. Sprouted flour can be a bit dry, and the thick and tart icing is the perfect pairing. It is even better when topped with a large scoop of homemade ice cream!

Ingredients

Cake

• 3 sticks of butter, softened
• 1.5 cups of packed maple sugar*
• 4 eggs
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon grated orange zest
• 4 cups sprouted flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3 cups loosely packed grated carrots
• ¼ cup orange juice

*If you can’t find maple sugar, you can use any other kind of sugar (preferably rapadura or sucanet over brown sugar), but you might want to use a bit more since maple sugar is sweeter. 

Icing

• 4 packages (8 ounces each) of cream cheese, softened
• 6 tablespoons lemon juice
• 3 tablespoons vanilla extract
• ½ cup maple syrup (or sweetened to taste)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9-inch round cake pans.
2. Beat together the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla and orange zest.
3. Whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and spices. Add this to the butter mixture, alternating with the carrots. Be careful to mix only enough to combine.
4. Spread the batter in the pans, and bake for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cakes comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minutes in the pans, then carefully transfer to cooling racks to cool completely.
5. To make the icing, stir all ingredients together until well-blended.
6. Spread 1 cup of icing over a cake layer and top with the second layer. Spread the rest of the icing on the top and sides of the cake.

Stay sane,