Naturally Sweet Carrot Cake

Do you have wishes?

Wishes like a little girl dreaming her parents would stop fighting?

Wishes like a mother praying for cancer to spare her son?

The type of wishes that make your stomach turn, your heart burn.

I’ve had a few of those wishes…

Situations that are impossibly frightening…like when my sister was in the hospital….like when baby Ryan drowned.

When you’ve had wishes like the ones I mentioned–life or death wishes–it can seem selfish to get caught in the little things. But I do.

I want to start my own family.

I want to be closer to my parents.

I want to not miss Pam, Jeremy, and Mike on spring mornings.

For one reason or another, those three wishes weigh on me. I think about them at least once a day, and I wonder if there will soon be a time when I don’t feel so pressingly urgent. 

I think many of you cope with answered wishes in the same way I do–by finding things you love and pursuing them wholeheartedly.

I bake.

I take care of Cricket (and now, Margot).

I walk.

And of course, I talk and sit and eat and just be with Ryan.

On Friday, with the rain pouring, I opened my pantry and pulled out half-full bags of flour, jars of spices, and a roll of parchment paper. I grated carrots, mashed bananas. I sifted and I measured until I had my cake in the oven.

A cake full of things like whole wheat flour and Greek yogurt.

A cake without one teaspoon of sugar, yet deliciously sweet from the natural sugars in bananas, carrots, and maple syrup.

A cake that made me feel a little bit better (even though it wasn’t my parents in my kitchen, a baby in my arms, or my sister and her family alive and whole again).

It was something I had created and something I could share.

I hope you enjoy this naturally sweet carrot cake as much as Ryan and I did. It does the body and the soul good.

Naturally Sweet Carrot Cake
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup maple syrup
3 ripe bananas (1 1/4 cups), mashed well
1 1/2 cups grated carrots (about 3 medium or 2 cups of baby carrots)
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
2 eggs, lightly whisked

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter an 8×8 cake pan and line it with parchment paper.

2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl. In a small bowl or large cup, stir together the eggs, canola oil, maple syrup, and yogurt.

3. In a large bowl combine the bananas and carrots.  Whisk in the yogurt and egg mixture. Add the flour mixture and stir until everything  comes together. Spoon into the prepared pan and smooth with a spatula.

4. Bake for about 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick tests clean in the center of the cake.

Always,
Monet
Anecdotes and Apple Cores