It’s been two weeks since I had carrots in my weekly vegetable basket. Yes, carrots are in season, it’s good for your health, but I was a little fed up ! I decided to use it to make a low glycemic index carrot cake recipe. If between two rays of sun and two lockdowns, you want a little sweetness for your tea time, follow the recipe !
As usual, I mixed several recipe ideas found on Pinteret.
Low Glycemic Index: what does this mean ?
For those who do not know what the glycemic index is, it corresponds to the rate at which the glucose from a food will find its way into the blood. This allows us to compare portions of foods that have the same weight of carbohydrate based on their ability to raise blood sugar levels.
When we eat, it causes a surge in blood sugar. We have a hormone that helps regulate our blood sugar levels : insulin secreted by the pancreas, which works to prevent too much sugar from staying in the blood.
The higher the GI is, the more it raises blood sugar and more insulin will be released. Too much of it can lead to “resistance” to insulin, it loses its effectiveness and can therefore cause obesity, hypertension and type 2 diabetes.
Eating foods with fake sugar is not necessarily the solution because our brain cannot tell the difference between real and fake sugar and it will still release insulin because it receives the sugar message (for example, in the case of sodas). Think more about quantities and natural products.
Low Glycemic Index carrot cake recipe
It has been a while since I did and the last memorable one I ate was in Brighton. And yes, this is the kind of dessert our British neighbors love.
Ingredients
160g all wheat flour
2 carrots (mine were quite big)
2 whole egg (organic if possible)
50ml of almond milk without added sugar
2 small bananas
50g maple syrup (or honey)
40g of crushed nuts (I mixed almonds and walnuts)
3 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon of baking soda (5g)
1 pinch of salt
Topping (optional)
30g maple syrup
1 tablespoon organic peanut butter
90g of coconut cream (single can) or topping with Philadelphia
dried fruits
Steps
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Peel the carrots and grate them very finely. You can squeeze them through a colander to remove excess water (I admit I skipped this step).
Mix the dry ingredients : flour, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, salt.
In another bowl, combine the wet ingredients : eggs, mashed bananas, milk.
Stir the wet mixture into the dry mixture. The apparatus thus obtained must be homogeneous.
Finally add the grated carrots and crushed walnuts. If you like raisins, cranberries or dates, you can always add some.
Bake in a cake mold, lined with baking paper, for 40 minutes.
Check the doneness by planting the tip of a knife, it should come out dry. Otherwise, prolong the cooking for a few minutes.
Let cool to room temperature before coating the cake. To make the coconut cream, take the canned coconut without shaking it, open and collect the cream, which is above the juice, using a tablespoon. Whip the coconut cream without its water (or the natural cream cheese) with the maple syrup. Reserve in the fridge.
Ideally, leave the carrot cake to rest with the topping for about 1 hour in the fridge before tasting.
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