Cakes Using Wholemeal Flour

Here are a couple of my favourite cakes that remind me of tea parties with my Mum and Nan.  I hope you like them.  My girls love helping me make them and the wholemeal flour adds extra flavour as well as a little more texture to the cakes.

Carrot Cake

1 cup flour

2 tsp cinnamon

2 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup wholemeal flour

1 cup sugar

¾ cup bran (or extra wholemeal flour)

160g butter

¾ cup oil

4 eggs

1 tin (450g) crushed pineapple, drained

3 cups grated carrot (3 large carrots)

1 Tbsp brown sugar

1 lemon

Grate carrot and cover with water in a bowl with brown sugar and lemon juice. Leave to stand for two hours. When ready to make the cake, drain any water off.  This process softens the carrot and improves the flavour.

Preheat oven to 160ºC. Sift together flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the wholemeal flour, sugar and bran.

Melt the butter, and stir the melted butter and oil into the dry ingredients.  Beat the eggs, then add the eggs, pineapple, and carrot to the cake mixture. Don't overmix it, just make sure everything is combined.  Bake in a 23cm cake tin for 50-65 minutes.

Icing

250g cream cheese

110g butter, softened

500g icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract
Lemon juice to taste

(optional) walnuts to decorate

Cream butter, then beat together all ingredients until creamy and smooth. Spread on cooled cake, and top with walnuts if desired.

Apricot and Coconut Loaf

225 g sugar

110 g desiccated coconut

200 g dried apricots

150 g plain flour

70 g wholemeal flour

1½ tsp baking powder

110 g pumpkin seeds

375 ml milk

1½ tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 325º F/160ºC fan forced. 

Grease and line a medium to large loaf tin.

Chop the dried apricots into smallish chunks – about the same size as the pumpkin seeds.

Put all the dry ingredients into a large bowl and combine well.

Pour in the milk and vanilla extract and mix thoroughly. It is quite a wet mixture.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, put it on in the centre rack of the oven and bake for about 1½ hours.

Rotate the tin after 40 minutes and keep checking the loaf towards the end of the baking time. The top should be an even golden brown and will probably have a long crack along the centre; it should feel firm and springy to the touch, and the edges should be pulling away from the sides of the tin.

Cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes before removing it from the tin to finish cooling. Store in an airtight container.