Saturday, May 19, 2012

Nearly Normal Carrot Cake


I have a bit of a sweet tooth. Well, ok, like 32 of them. So, after Spring Fling we take the kids to get ice cream. I am so frustrated with my new diet that I got really annoyed that everyone got dessert except me. Pay no attention to the fact that I can count on one hand how many times I've eaten dessert this year. And also ignore that I haven't been able to eat ice cream for almost 3 years because of lactose intolerance. Whatever. That no longer matters. These disorders are taking the fun out of my life and I decided I would really show them!

I came home and made the carrot cake that I was going to make for Charlie's birthday before Melissa made 800,000 cupcakes.
I got the recipe from Jules Shepard's 'Nearly Normal Cooking for Gluten-Free Living.' It is my favorite book of the six GF cookbooks I randomly selected at the library. Most of the recipes really do seem as normal as they can be. In many of the recipes she calls for a pre-made mixture of flours which she named her All-Purpose Nearly Normal GF Flour Mix. It is as follows:
1 c. white rice flour
1 c. potato starch
1 c. cornstarch
1/2 c. corn flour
1/2 c tapioca flour
4 tsp. xanthan gum
The carrot cake was phenomenal. I really didn't think it tasted any different than regular carrot cake. I think it was a good cake to start with because the spices are pretty flavorful and take away from the fact that you are eating potato starch and xanthan gum. The only complaint is of my own body again, it really made me miss walnuts. If you are not nut allergic, definitely add walnuts. I also must admit that I cannot stand the texture of raisins and so I omitted them. I also used Gluten-Free packaged cream cheese icing rather than her recipe because that's what I bought to save time for the party and didn't want it to go to waste. Her icing recipe is pretty typical though and I am sure it's yummy. I can't wait to try more things from her book!

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