Friday, January 9, 2015

Clean Eating Tropical Birthday Carrot Cake

Our family fell off the clean eating wagon over the holidays, but we decided we'd better hop back on ASAP. And so far, so good! Then I realized Abbey's 3rd birthday was coming up and I had to think up a healthy birthday cake for her family party since we always do a small one on their actual birthday. She loves carrot cake and cream cheese so Isearched online but pretty much every recipe was full of fat and sugar! That's when I decided to take a bunch of recipes and create my own.

This recipe makes one small cake pan and a couple of muffins.

2 eggs, beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup coconut sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup crushed pineapple, semi-drained
1 1/2 cup carrots, shredded
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease pans with olive oil and sprinkle with flour. Cut out parchment paper to the size of the bottom of the pan and put it in prepared pan.
2) Mix eggs, vanilla, honey and sugar with whisk in a medium mixing bowl.
3) Whisk in cinnamon, applesauce and olive oil.
4) Add baking soda, salt and baking powder. Mix in pineapple, carrots, flour and coconut.
5) Pour into greased pans and bake for approx. 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Icing:
1/4 cup cream cheese
1/4 cup plain greek yogurt
2 Tbsp honey
Sprinkle of toasted coconut
Sprinkle of chopped pecans
While cake is baking, beat cream cheese, yogurt and honey together and refrigerate until cake is cooled.
Once cooled, ice cake then sprinkle with coconut and pecans on top.
The birthday girl enjoyed her cake very much and I hope you do too!