PUMPKIN, CARROT AND WALNUT CAKE WITH CASHEW ORANGE 'FROSTING'

Recipe by Henrietta Inman, from her cookbook "Clean Cakes"

Henrietta Inman is a professionally trained pastry chef, who avoids refined white flour and caster sugar in her cakes and patisserie. She works with a variety of our gluten-free Shipton Mill flours, and kindly agreed that we could share this recipe of hers on the blog. It’s a delicious option for those who look to avoid overly refined ingredients in their baking. You can read more about her philosophy and recipes on her website here.

Recipe from “Clean Cakes” by Henrietta Inman.

This is similar to a carrot cake, but so much better! With its spices and distinctive deep flavours of the teff flour, Palmyra nectar and the nutty cold pressed rapeseed oil, it’s a delightfully warming cake. The pumpkin purée keeps it scrumptiously soft while studded with lightly toasted crunchy walnuts and juicy sultanas (seedless golden raisins).”

INGREDIENTS

Serves 8-12

  • PUMPKIN CAKE
  • 90 g (3 oz/generous 3⁄4 cup) walnuts, preferably activated dried (see pg. 25 of "Hen's Clean Cakes" for further information on this)
  • 70 g (2 1⁄2 oz/1⁄2 cup) teff flour
  • 70 g (2 1⁄2 oz/1⁄2 cup) brown rice flour
  • 15 g (1⁄2 oz/2 tbsp) arrowroot
  • 3⁄4 tsp Himalayan pink salt
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
  • 1 1⁄2 tsp mixed spice
  • 11⁄2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 120 g (41⁄4 oz/generous 3⁄4 cup) Palmyra nectar powder
  • 60 g (2 oz/generous 1⁄3 cup) sultanas (seedless golden raisins)
  • 150 ml (5 fl oz/scant 2⁄3 cup) EVCP rapeseed oil, plus extra for greasing
  • 210 g (7 1⁄2 oz/scant 1 cup) good-quality tinned pumpkin purée (or homemade)
  • 60 g (2 oz/2⁄3 cup) grated carrot
  • Finely grated zest of 1 orange
  • 2 eggs
  • CASHEW ORANGE 'FROSTING'
  • 1 x recipe cashew cream (see below)
  • 80 g (2 3⁄4 oz/1⁄4 cup) clear raw honey
  • 1⁄4 vanilla pod (bean), split lengthways and seeds scraped out
  • Finely grated zest and 4 tsp juice of 1⁄2 lemon
  • Finely grated zest of 1 orange
  • Pinch Himalayan pink salt
  • 140 g (5 oz/2⁄3 cup) coconut oil, melted
  • TO DECORATE
  • Edible flowers, such as fresh and dried marigolds

METHOD

Make the frosting first as it needs time in the fridge to firm up. To make the frosting, combine all the ingredients except the coconut oil in a blender, finishing by blending in the oil. Blend until totally smooth, cover the surface completely with cling film (plastic wrap) and refrigerate for about 8 hours or ideally overnight to thicken.

Preheat the oven to 170°C/325°F/Gas Mark 3. On a baking tray, lightly toast the walnuts for 5–8 minutes, until just beginning to colour, leave to cool then chop into small pea-sized pieces. Grease an 18–20 cm (7–8 inch) loose-bottomed cake tin with rapeseed oil and line the base with baking parchment.

In a large bowl, mix together the walnuts with all the dry ingredients from the teff flour to the sultanas (seedless golden raisins). In another bowl, mix together the oil, pumpkin purée, grated carrot, orange zest and eggs. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients, folding them in until combined.

Pour the mix into the prepared tin and bake for 30–35 minutes, rotating halfway through baking, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin and then demould. When cool, cut in half and fill with half the cashew orange ‘frosting’, spreading the remainder on top. If your frosting is a little too runny and needs to be firmer, give it a blast in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Decorate with fresh flowers, if you wish.

This keeps well for up to five days in the fridge. It freezes well too, without the frosting.

NOTES

You can also make muffins with the cake mix. Just divide the mix between eight muffin cases and bake at 170°C/325°F/Gas Mark 3 for 15–20 minutes, turning halfway, until a skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean. Top with the frosting, or they’re delicious without.

Pecans work well instead of walnuts in this cake.

Recipe and images extracted from Clean Cakes by Henrietta Inman, photography by Lisa Linder. Published by Jacqui Small (£20).

clean-cakes

INGREDIENTS

  • 200 g (7 oz/1 1⁄2 cups) cashew nuts (about 260 g (9 1⁄4 oz) soaked weight)
  • 130 ml (4 1⁄2 fl oz/generous 1⁄2 cup) almond milk

CASHEW CREAM

When you start to make these delicious dairy-free nut creams you will realize how amazingly versatile and useful they are to go with your Clean Cakes, or in your day-to-day cooking.

Cashew nuts are a really useful ingredient, especially for those who do not eat dairy, as they can be whizzed up to make silky milks and creams. This unctuous cashew cream is perfect served with any of my Clean Cakes, plus it is the base of some icings (frostings), ‘yogurts’ and raw cakes. It is delicious as it is, or you can adapt it by adding your preferred natural sweetener or other flavourings such as vanilla. I also love to add it to smoothies and stir it into granola, fresh fruit or porridge.

For a savoury twist, make a non-dairy soured cream by adding nutritional yeast flakes or powder, lemon juice and salt to taste to the cream. Then stir into soups or enjoy with tacos and chilli.

Makes about 380g (13 1/2 oz/ 1 3/4 cups

Soak the cashew nuts in 500 ml (17 fl oz/21⁄8 cup) of filtered water and 1 tsp of Himalayan pink salt for 3–4 hours. Drain and rinse thoroughly.

Blend the nuts with the almond milk until completely smooth, stopping the blender and scraping down the mix when necessary. The end result must be totally smooth for use in all recipes.

The cream will keep in the fridge for at least four days in a sealed glass jar.”