Carrot cake time, with a coconut and lime spicy twist

SUCH AN URGE TO MAKE VEGETABLES SWEET!

Seriously, half my posts have vegetables made sweet or with sweet things. I am just fascinated about how well it works. Also its a way of eating your veggies and dessert at the same time. That's what I call logic my friend. My next sweet vegetable adventure is with Carrot Cake. A tad boring but i just really wanted to make it. This one is slightly different however and extremely moist and gooey..

Chia spiced coconut and Carrot Cake with lime cream cheese icing

Ingrediants
2 cups of grated carrot
1/2 cup of raisins
1 cup of coconut milk
1/3 cup liquid sweetener (I used agave)
1 cup of white self raising flour
1 cup of wholemeal self raising flour
baking powder
1 lime
6 green cardamon pods
2 tsps of ground cinnamon
2 tsps of ground ginger
1/2 tsp of ground clove
1/2 tsp of ground nutmeg
1/2 a tub of vegan cream cheese
1/2 cup of icing sugar

-First create your spice mix. Split your cardamon pods and add the seeds to a mortar and grind. Transfer to a large mixing bowl with your cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg.
- Add to the same bowl the rest of your dry cake ingredients (flours, baking powder, salt, carrot) and mix together.
- In a jug (this make it easier to add to your dry ingredients later) mix together honey, coconut milk and 1 tbsp of lime juice
- Gradually add  your wet mix to your dry ingredients and fold together
- Transfer to a cake tin and bake at 180 till a tooth pick comes out clean when inserted into the cake.

My bubaaa pre-oven

- When the cake is baked and cool  mix together your cream cheese the zest of the lime, 2 tsp of lime juice and the icing sugar. depending on your brand of cream cheese or desired consistency of icing you may need to add more or less icing sugar. Mine was more like a thick glaze.
- Viola!

HOZAAAA

Sugar Free Jam

I love jam
I don't love the amount of sugar in it. In Hartley's Strawberry Jam there is 61g of sugar in 100g of Jam. Not to mention they add Gelling agent, Sodium Citrates and Glucose fructose syrup. That's less then 40% fruit in your fruit jam...
So for others who still want there sweet fruity jam but don't all that sugar, here is a sugar free jam that is more exiting then your bog standard strawberry.
The secret to thickening the fruit with out the gelling agent and sugar is chia seeds. This ancient seed dates back to Aztec times and they are full of the good stuff, Omega 3, dietary fiber, calcium, iron, protein, potassium not to mention loads of antioxidants. Seriously they are insanely good for you. The other awesome thing about chia seeds is that when they are submerged into a liquid they create a gel that thickens the liquid they are in. Boom we have an all natural, healthy gelling agent. Hozaaa jam time. 

Magical seeds

Mango, Apple, Pear and Ginger Chia Seed Jam,

Ingredients
Half a medium mango
1 pear
1 eating apple
1 tsp of minced ginger
1 lemon (un-waxed)
1 tbsp of Honey, or liquid sweetner (to taste)

1 tbsp of sweetener (to taste)
3 tbsp of water (ish)
2 tbsp of Chia Seeds

- Roughly dice mango, apple and pear and put in a medium heavy bottomed pan. Add ginger, honey and sweetener. Get your lemon and with a peeler, peal 3 strips of peal and add to pot. Slice open your lemon and add a tbsp of the juice.
- Add your 3 tbsp of water and turn the heat on. You may need to add less or more water depending on how juicy your fruit is.
 -Stir your fruit mixture over a medium heat until all the fruit has broken down.  Then remove from heat and take out the lemon peal. I didn't wait for it to cool before a blitzed it (cause i live my life on the edge) but if you don't like hot fruit puree in your eye leave to cool then blitz.
-Taste, this is your change to add more sweetener/ginger/acidity. Each jam at this stage will be slightly different as fruits vary in sweetness and acidity as they ripen so taste and change if need be.
-Place pureed mixture back on a low heat and had your chia seeds stir for about a minuet and remove from heat. Leave to cool and but in tubs. This mixture keeps for about 1/2 weeks in the fridge.

I put them in little tubs.. They're so cute, like little baby jams