Sprouted Wholemeal Spelt Flour Carrot Cake

One of my all time favourite cakes has to be carrot cake. Surprisingly it is not a cake that I make very often but that makes it even more of a treat!

I was recently sent some new flours to try which gave me the perfect excuse to make a carrot cake! I was sent an email from the team over at Bite UK telling me about the new Spiffing sprouted flours. Needless to say I was curious and wanted to know more. Sprouted flours have been through a germination technique called sprouted. This process wakes up the grain, bringing it to life and acting as a catalyst for nutrients. Flours that have undergone this germination have many benefits including:

• More easily digestible. They are rapidly absorbed by the body and kinder to the stomach.
• Increased key nutrients such as Vitamins B and C, folate, fibre, essential amino acids and increased anti oxidants.
• Enhanced taste and texture.

The flours come in four varieties:

• Sprouted wheat flour
• Sprouted wholemeal spelt flour
• Sprouted buckwheat flour
• Sprouted chickpea flour

For this bake I decided to use the sprouted wholemeal spelt flour. I love the nutty flavour that spelt brings to a bake and knew that it would be perfect for this cake. I got my inspiration for this cake from Signe Johansen's beautiful book Scandilicious Baking. This is what I did... 

Sprouted Wholemeal Spelt Flour Carrot Cake

Ingredients

250g sprouted wholemeal spelt flour
125g golden caster sugar
125g light brown muscovado sugar
200mls sunflower oil
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground nutmeg
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
350g carrots, grated
100g mixed fruit
50g chopped walnuts
50g chopped dried dates
Zest of 2 oranges
Juice of 1 orange (reserve the juice of the second orange for the topping!)
4 eggs
100g icing sugar

Method

Preheat the oven to 160C

1 - Place the golden caster sugar, muscovado sugar and eggs in a large mixing bowl, it is easier if you can use a stand mixer (I use the kMix stand mixer)

2 - Mix the sugars and eggs until light in colour

3 - Gradually pour in the sunflower oil, if you add it slowly the mixture will not curdle and separate

4 - Gradually add the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, sea salt, grated carrots, dried mixed fruit, walnuts, orange zest and juice of 1 orange

5 - Keep mixing until all of the ingredients are incorporated evenly

6 - Line and grease a square cake tin approx 21cms x 21cms

7 - Pour in the cake mixture and place in the centre of the preheated oven and bake for 60 - 70 minutes. Check after 45 minutes and cover with foil if it is brown on top but not thoroughly baked

8 - Once the cake is golden and firm to the touch remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes before removing and leaving to cool completely on a cooling rack

9 - Once cool prepare the topping by placing the icing sugar in a bowl and gradually adding the remaining orange juice until you have the desired consistency and drizzle over the icing

This cake was deliciously moist and thanks to the spelt flour and walnuts it had a moreish nutty texture that kept everyone coming back for more! The diet was definitely out the window while we had this cake and it was so worth it!

Have you heard of or tried sprouted flours before? What do you think?

Enjoy x

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Disclosure: I was sent a selection of sprouted flours to try. No cash payment was received.