Thursday, January 30, 2014

Breakfast cake

The last slice of this healthy and delicious cake.
This cake is an adaptation of a new carrot cake recipe I wanted to try out. It happened like this: There were 4 egg whites in the fridge and I thought to use in all up with a carrot cake recipe that was in my recipe folder for some time. When checking our supplies there was only one carrot left! (We always have lots of carrots on hand!) Decided to add grated apple - have done this with the carrot cake I usually make - though the recipe calls for a tin of crushed pineapple, which I didn't have. I decided on the spur of the moment to use a banana which was getting a bit overripe. Since I didn't have the required nuts either I decided to replace that with pumpkin and sesame seeds. We ended up this this moist and delicious cake. It lasted 4 days and to the last slice it was still moist and delicious. (Other things I changed was replacing one cup of flour with whole wheat flour and half the amount of sugar.)  I didn't know what to name this new creation, but I thought it is healthy enough as a breakfast/lunch snack, thus the name. So here is the recipe - before I forget what I changes I made:

Ingredients
1 cup standard flour
1 cup wholewheat flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup raw sugar
4 eggs (I used 4 leftover egg whites and 2 whole eggs)
1 cup sunflower oil
1 carrot, grated
2 medium apples, grated (leave the skin on)
1 banana
½ cup sesame seed
½ - 1 cup pumpkin seeds (I didn't measure when I added the seeds)

Method
  1. First grate the carrot and apples, and mash the banana.
  2. Set oven to 180°C and spray a ring cake tin with cooking spray.
  3. Sift the flours, baking soda, salt and spices together, and add the sugar. Mix gently to distribute ingredients evenly.
  4. Add the eggs and oil and mix lightly.
  5. Add the carrot, apple, banana and seeds and mix it lightly through the dough. If the dough feels too stiff you could add a bit more oil to the mixture.
  6. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for an hour or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted.

I'm sure raisins added to the mix would be lovely, but my family don't like raisins.

It is satisfying when an experiment turns out well. The previous time I had to throw out the cake - it was inedible!!