The “Everything-Free” Carrot Cake with Oven-Baked Plum Jam
I love challenges, I do, but hey…
Last weekend, I was going to visit my close friend and her family. Naturally, I wanted to bring a cake! (Un)fortunately, that wasn’t an easy task!
You know, if one wants to make a cake that would satisfy all our needs and preferences, it should be:
- dairy free
- nut free
- without added sugar
- preferably low in gluten
Yep. Let’s skip also eggs and make it vegan, shall we? 😂
First of all, I was pretty lost. I knew I wanted to use buckwheat flour as the base but I had no idea which direction to take further. I didn’t want to repeat the same recipe that I baked just a week ago, the Super-duper avocado chocolate cake, therefore avocado frosting
As I was browsing through recipes, I got the idea to make a carrot cake – because that could perfectly match with the nutty flavour of buckwheat – and also the other way back – I do not need to use nuts to gain the nutty flavour that I like when eating a carrot cake.
Moreover, it’s finally autumn and that’s time for spicy recipes using lots of cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves… which go also nicely along with a carrot cake, right?
I was also happy with my choice since I could use bananas – first to replace eggs and secondly – to satisfy my dear friend’s preferences – the girl I baked this cake for loves old, ripe bananas. Damn, don’t ask me why! 🙉
OK, carrot cake it is,
But wait, what about frosting, cream, something?!
It couldn’t be any dairy product so yoghurt or cream was out of the game, but I really didn’t want to use soy or oil-based vegan replacements either.
Suddenly, I had another splendid idea – oatmeal sour cream! I had never used it before but I like the oatmeal milk and it seems that oatmeal-based products are getting pretty popular, so let’s try it, though I.
OK, honestly, it wasn’t any splendid idea. I will, at some point, give oatmeal products another chance, but for this time, it simple didn’t work well (for me).
But what am I going to put on my cake then? I was getting really desperate, therefore I decided to look at the cake from a different angle. Simply do not use anything cream-like.
And then it came – autumn, spices, plums!
I love baked plum jam – it’s rich, sour and goes perfectly together with spices like cinnamon, ginger,
You can surely buy a plum jam in a grocery store, but believe me, it’s worth making it at home – and it’s really easy! The only thing it needs is you, being around the oven – I baked it during almost 8h. But don’t get scared now! I split it into two days! Simply: work, training, coming home at 4, starting the oven, baking until 9, leaving on the table during a night, put it into the fridge for a day, come home and repeat. You do have the time to bake your own jam!
Moreover, it’s you who decide how sweet the jam is and if you add some spices into it or not!
And you will feel awesome – do you know someone else who bakes own plum jam?!
INGREDIENTS
FOR THE PLUM JAM
1kg purple/ black skin plums
40ml vinegar
150g Sukrin
FOR THE DOUGH
250g buckwheat grains
3 tsp baking powder
100g Sukrin
2 ripe bananas
1 orange – juice and zest
300g oatmeal “Crème Fraiche” (I used Creamy Oat Fraiche, Oatly)
200g carrot
100g melted coconut oil
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp clove
1/4 tsp nutmeg
INSTRUCTIONS
BAKE THE PLUMS
(I like the jam to be quite sour but if you want it to be sweeter, just add more sweeteners into it. In my recipe, I use Sukrin instead of sugar, since there is, for me, already enough of sugar coming from the plums.)
Preheat the oven to 200°C
In a food processor, puree plums with sukrin (sugar) and vinegar.
Pour the puree into a (preferably large) pan – the larger it is, the lower the layer of plums is, the shorter the time of baking.
Put the pan into the preheated oven an bake for 30 minutes.
After 20min of baking, lower the temperatur to 140°C.
Bake the pureed plum for 4-8h
The amount of time depends both on the amount of plum puree you bake and on the plums itself. You simply have to check here and there if the jam is as thick as you want it to be!
The aim is to bake the plum puree first for 30 min in 200°C and then to slowly continue for several hours on a lower temperature – to slowly dry off the water and to caramelise the sugar that the plums contain. I bake them until I get a thick, dark brown paste.
I also stop baking when I need to, and then continue when having time for it again. Dividing the baking process into two days is not a problem at all!
MAKE THE CAKE
I used a quite small cake pan – do not worry to use a bit larger one but remember that this recipe is not for a large cake. Therefore I suggest not using a pan that is bigger than 24cm.
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Coat a
In a food processor, break whole buckwheat grains until obtaining fine powder.
Place the powder in a bowl and mix it with spices, salt and baking powder.
In the food processor, puree the carrot with both orange zest and juice.
Be careful to peel only the orange part of the zest, the white layer underneath is pretty bitter!
To the puree, add bananas, coconut oil and oatmeal cream.
As I wrote earlier, I was really unhappy with the oatmeal cream in my frosting, but it did a good job in the batter though!
Pour the mixture onto the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well together.
Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for approximately 40min.
Check if your cake is done with a wooden pick – insert it into the middle and if it comes out clean, the cake is baked enough!
Place the baked cake on a rack and let it cool down completely.
Now comes the little trick with buckwheat! When you finish baking the cake, its texture might seem dry and not compact enough, but wait for it! Place the cake into the fridge and leave it there overnight. The buckwheat will absorb humidity from other ingredients that the cake contains and next day, you’ll have a soft and moist cake sponge!
When the cake is chilled and cold, cut it into two layers.
In between the layers and on the top of the cake, spread the baked plums jam.
Decorate with fresh oranges, dried fruits and seeds. (I also made a bunch of carrot chips, but I have to tune my recipe before sharing it with you, it’s coming soon though!)
Bon ap