Carrot cake

My favourite cake is very much out of bounds while trying to lose weight, so I thought I'd try a little experiment, by combining the ever-so-succesful oat pancake recipe, the half-syn roulade recipe and a traditional carrot cake recipe.

The result was way better than I had hoped for. The cake was light, moist and tasty, with the consistency of a bread pudding, and the taste was very much carrot cake.

I made one with icing and one without, and we both preferred the naked version.

I bought some 4-inch children's cake tins yesterday in The Range for £1 each, and they were ideal to make two small cakes. I am sure it would work with one slightly larger tin too, but you will have to adjust the baking time accordingly.

Serves 4*

1 Syn on Extra Easy**
** Providing you use the oats as your Healthy Extra B

* I made two cakes, and we did eat a whole one each, but half a cake would be enough for one person really, we were just being greedy.

You could, of course, omit the sultanas and make the cake almost syn free, as there is only ¼ syn in the baking powder. I thought the sultanas were worth the syns though.

70g porridge oats

1 tub Müllerlight mandarin yogurt

2 small carrots, finely grated

½ cup sweetener or to taste

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp ground cloves

1 tsp ground nutmeg

20g sultanas (total 3 syns)

2 eggs, separated

½ tsp baking powder (total ¼ syns)

Icing (optional)

2 tbsp quark

2 tbsp sweetener

Start the day before you want to eat the cake. Soak the oats in the yogurt with 1 tbsp water, the spices and sweetener overnight. In a separate small bowl, soak the sultanas in just enough water to cover them.

The next day, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the baking powder. I find it is best at this stage to taste the oat mixture and adjust the spices or sweetener if necessary. Mix together the oats, grated carrots and sultanas with the egg yolks and stir thoroughly. Carefully fold in the egg whites and pour into two greased 4-inch cake tins. Bake at 180°C for 10-15 minutes until a skewer comes out clean and the top feels spongy. Mine took a bout 17 minutes in total.

Mix together the quark and sweetener for the icing if using, and spread across the cake.

Enjoy a guilt free cake with your morning coffee!