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Spiced Carrot Cake with Goji berries, Popped Hopi Red Amaranth Seeds and maple/hickory nut topping
This recipe offers a means to distill down several fall harvests from the garden and food forest into a delicious desert that is also nutritious. You can have your cake and eat it too!
This post serves as the 33erd post which is part of the (Stacking Functions in the Garden, Food Forest and Medicine Cabinet : The Regenerative Way From Seed To Apothecary series).
I once had a friend make me a carrot cake for my B-day eons ago and I have been telling myself I wanna try making one myself ever since. Well, my buddy James Evan Pilato gave me the nudge to finally jump in and give it a try.
If you have been subscribed to this newsletter for a while you know how much I love to stack functions in the garden and in the kitchen. So knowing me, you know I could not make this just any old run of the mill carrot cake using typical (processed and chemical laced) ingredients! No way! Not on my watch! So I went ahead and took my memory of a carrot cake and infused it with some herbalism knowledge, locally sourced organic ingredients and essence of northern food forest.
I tried a couple versions and used pawpaw pulp in one, which created a lovely moist and heavy cake texture. I also made some muffins with nuts in the batter. Both were great for different reasons.
I added not only a healthy helping of shredded organic carrots, but also some homegrown Ginger rhizome, Goji berries, popped Hopi Amaranth Seeds, hand ground whole spices (Allspice, Nutmeg and Cloves), cinnamon, real organic vanilla, coconut oil and topped it with icing made with organic cream cheese, maple sugar and foraged hickory nuts.
Therefore, this is a desert that is not just for taste, it is actually very nutritious and is also medicinally potent (offering Improved Lung Health, Anti-aging effects, Optimized Mitochondrial Health, Osteo-protective and Osteo-regenerative benefits, Reproductive health enhancing benefits, Neuroprotective and Neuro-regenerative benefits, Ocular-protective and Ocular Regenerative benefits as well as Innate Immune System optimizing benefits).
This cake is a way for you to have your cake and eat it too! (with regards to enjoying something that tastes amazing while also nourishing your body that is).
I hope you will try making your own version of this and let me know how it goes.
Ingredients :
Cake
- 3 cups all-purpose organic flour
- 2 cups granulated organic sugar (I did one cup maple sugar and one cup organic coconut sugar)
- 1/4 cup – 1/2 cup finely grated fresh ginger rhizome (depending on how spicey you like it)
- 1 Tbsp baking soda
- 2 tsp ground organic cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground organic all spice
- 1/4 tsp ground organic nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground organic cloves
- 4 organic free range eggs
- 1 1/2 cups organic coconut oil
- 2 tsp organic vanilla extract
- 2-3 cups organic grated carrots
- 1 cup fresh goji berries (or a 1/2 cup dried berries)
- 1/4 – 1/2 cup Amaranth Seeds (I used our homegrown Hopi Red Amaranth Seeds)Optional Ingredients:
- 1/2- 3/4 cup Pawpaw pulp (for added cake moistness and more nutrition)
- Cannabis seeds (aka “Hemp Hearts”)
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 12 oz organic cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup organic butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup powdered organic sugar
- 1 – 1 and 1/2 cups maple sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Topping
Instructions:
Cake:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray two 9” cake pans with cooking spray and/or line the bottoms with parchment paper.
- Pop your Amaranth seeds in a hot pan (see this video for tips) and here is a short video clip of me popping the Hopi Red Amaranth seeds from the other night when I made this (you can hear the flying seeds popping and pinging off the microphone of the phone and see how fast this all happens to get an idea to be prepared, in the case of Hopi Red Amaranth I found the pan should be on hot (7-8 on the 1-10 dial for electric stoves for ideal popping)
- In a large bowl, sift together flour, granulated sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, all spice, and salt. Set aside.adding dry ingredients to mix
- In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, coconut oil, and a splash of vanilla extract. Add grated carrots and ginger rhizome.adding grated carrots to bet eggs and coconut oilgrating ginger
- Stir wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, then add popped amaranth seeds mixing until just combined then add goji berries. Mix until just combined.adding wet to dry ingredientsadding popped Hopi Red Amaranth seeds and mixingadding goji berries to battermixing goji berries into batterfinished batter (with goji berries mixed in but not mashed up) ready to add to cake dish and bake
- Split batter evenly between the two cake pans and bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. (Alternately, you can split between three smaller cake pans or make muffins/cupcakes, I made multiple batches and did both)batter added to cake pan and put in the oven before cookingafter 30 min at 350F baking, looking good and smelling amazing, but not quite ready yetafter 45 min min was done and ready to let it cool before frosting
Frosting
- Beat butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy, about 1-2 minutes. Slowly add in powdered sugar. Add in vanilla extract and maple sugar to taste. If the frosting is runny, add in 1/2 cup more powdered sugar.adding the maple sugar infused organic icing onto my Spiced Carrot Cake
- sprinkle crushed hickory nuts on the top (pecans, hazelnut or walnut would work instead if you do not have hickory nuts)
I found that I liked to enjoy my cake with some homemade Pawpaw ice cream on the side.
Enjoy!
I hope you enjoyed this recipe and feel empowered to be able to take steps to use food as medicine while embracing culinary creativity. If you feel this post would resonate with and/or benefit those in your circles feel free to share.
If you would like to have access to well over a hundred other fun and nutritious recipes like this, my first book was packed full of them. Here is info on where you can purchase either a physical or digital copy of my first book below.
For those interested in purchasing a physical copy of the book you can do so through this link:
Related notes with pertinent info on ingredients used above:
Homegrown heirloom Amaranth harvest 2025! Separating the seeds from the chaff
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/x08QGazpYWI?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
