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THE Best Gluten-Free Carrot Cake

You can add raisins or walnuts to this if you'd like, it's a very easy and tasty gluten-free carrot cake, truly as good as any "regular" carrot cake I've ever had, with just the right sweetness.
Servings: 24 pieces

Ingredients

Cake

  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup real maple syrup
  • 1 1/4 cup avocado oil (you could use butter, but I think the avocado oil makes it more moist)
  • 1/2 cup sour cream (whole milk/full fat only!)
  • 1 Tablespoon organic lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon orange extract
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 cups gluten-free flour (I like this one, but have used this one before too)
  • 1 1/2 cups finely ground almond flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 Tablespoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon all spice
  • 2 cups grated carrots
  • 1 1/2 cups crispy or toasted walnuts-see notes below (optional)
  • 1 1/2 cups organic raisins (optional)

Cream Cheese Frosting

  • 8 ounces organic cream cheese, softened
  • 8 Tablespoons melted butter
  • 3 1/2 cups organic powdered sugar (sift it or break it apart with your fingers if it's clumpy)
  • 1 teaspoon orange extract
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1/8 teaspoon sea salt

Instructions

Cake

  • Preheat oven to 350.
  • With an electric mixer (I used my Bosch with the whisks), beat the eggs on high speed for 1 minute. Add maple syrup, avocado oil, sour cream, lemon juice, orange extract, and vanilla and mix another minute.
  • In a separate bowl, whisk together the gluten-free flour, almond flour, sea salt, baking powder, cinnamon and all spice. 
  • Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix just until smooth to avoid overmixing. Fold in carrots and nuts and/or raisins.
  • Spoon into a buttered 9x13 baking pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Cream Cheese Frosting

  • Mix everything together until smooth. Frost once the cake is cool.

Notes

Need a nut-free version?
My friend Joy tried this same recipe only used coconut flour instead of almond flour and omitted the walnuts and it still came out great and everyone loved it!  (She also used butter instead of oil, but I don't think that would make a huge difference either way.) 
A note about walnuts:
If you don't like walnuts, you'll still want to try this, they really do taste so good in this cake!   (Note that I don't like them either except in this cake and these rosemary walnuts that I'm addicted to.)
Start with crispy nuts if you have them or if you have time to whip some up (for the most nutrition), or at the least you'll want to toast the walnuts in the oven:  start with raw walnuts and put them on a parchment sheet lined baking pan.  Preheat to 350* and bake for 8-10 minutes or so until they're a little browned.  Rotate and/or move them around about half-way through, and watch them close so they don't burn.  Once cool just make sure they're broken up a little so there are no big/whole walnut pieces.
Want to try a recipe for cream cheese frosting using maple syrup instead of the powdered sugar?  
Try this and let me know how it comes out!
Mix the following together:
12 ounces softened cream cheese, ⅔ cup maple syrup, ½ teaspoon vanilla, ½ teaspoon almond extract, 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind.  Frost on the cake once cool.