Saturday, October 16, 2010

Dividends: Cream Cheese Frosting

So, I had leftover cream cheese frosting and made a pumpkin cream cheese by adding a little ricotta and some canned pumpkin.  

To use up the canned pumpkin, I did two things:

A quick pumpkin soup, with pumpkin,  whole grain drink from TJs, a little curry powder.

Pumpkin oatmeal, with pumpkin, gluten-free oats, cinnamon, ginger.


This may be a semi-regular feature, highlighting what to do with leftovers or extra stuff from a recipe... more to keep me accountable so that I don't end up with little bowls overflowing the fridge....

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Low-fat, Gluten-free Carrot Cake.

mmmmm....  I keep snitching bites off the top of the cake as I wander through the kitchen for my morning coffee...  Its based on a recipe from Jane Brody's Good Food Book, and has one tablespoon of fat in the entire cake, unlike traditional carrot cakes which are very rich.  The carrot mixture does need to rest overnight.


3/4 cup of sugar
1 1/4 cup water
1 cup raisins
2 cups grated carrots
1 tbsp butter
2 tsp pie spice
2 tsp cinnamon
approx 1/2 to 1 tsp nutmeg (freshly grated)

Bring all of this to a boil, and then simmer for about five minutes.  Cover the pan and let it rest for at least 12 hours.  You do not need to refrigerate.

12 (or more) Hours Later... preheat the oven to 275.  With the gluten free flours, I used teff, brown rice, sorghum and tapioca.   I mixed half a cup of each together, to get to approx 2 cups of 'flour'  (Brody calls for 1 1/4 cups whole wheat, 1 1/8 cups white).  A teaspoon of Xanthan Gum, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt, and a cup of chopped pecans all get mixed together.  Add this to the carrot mixture.   I had to add at least half a cup of water to get everything mixed.  I then put it in a tube pan and baked it in the oven for about an hour and a half...

Notes:

Every time I make this, I want to try it with dried pineapple too.  When I ate gluten I'd make it, but it failed miserably when we tried to add pineapple to the batter.   I just feel that carrot cake needs pineapple.   Its not a good looking cake, but it is yummy!     I have sometimes added some candied ginger, which is a great option....

You can make a quick cream cheese icing if you want to, but it somewhat defeats the purpose of the cake being low-fat.   It would hide the sins, though.