100-Mile Desserts: Carrot Cake/Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

Everyone says they have the perfect carrot cake recipe, but this is really one of the best sugar-free versions I've tasted. It could be vegan (if you weren't eating 100-mile and used non-dairy milk). It is adapted from the Candle Cafe Cookbook. It does not contain eggs, and is wheat-free. The cream cheese icing is very simple, and again sugar-free. I made the recipe into cupcakes instead of cake today, and sprinkled some 100-mile hazelnuts that we got last fall on half the cupcakes. They were more like moist muffins.

I wanted to make a small test batch of the icing recipe, so I just drizzled a little of the icing on the rest, but it could be made much thicker and swirled on in a more elaborate way. Garnished with edible flowers like calendula, borage or nasturtium, these cupcakes/cake would be gorgeous! As it's healthy, yet moist and decadent-tasting, I think this will be the celebration cake I make for our daughter's first birthday in a few weeks!

Carrot Cake/Cupcakes

2 cups organic spelt flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup milk
1 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup canola oil
2 cups coarsely shredded organic carrots
1/2 cup organic apple or pear sauce

1) Preheat oven to 350F.
2) In a large mixing bowl mix dry ingredients together.
3) In a separate bowl mix the wet ingredients together.
4) Pour wet into dry and stir gently just to combine.
5) Divide the batter into 2 lightly greased and floured cake pans (9-inch). OR for cupcakes divide the batter into 12 muffin tins (lined with paper, or lightly greased).
6) Bake for 30 minutes (for cupcakes) or 35 minutes (for cake) until a cake tester comes out clean when inserted in centre of cake/cupcakes.
7) Remove from oven and let cool completely before icing.

Cream Cheese Frosting
In a food process or blender beat together:
8 ounces local cream cheese, softened
with enough apple juice or cider to create a frosting consistency
and a little maple syrup or honey to sweeten (to taste)

Hazelnuts, Chestnuts & Heartnuts - grown locally!

I made my final purchase for the season at the Bailey's Local Foods pick-up today. The list of available local foods (even at the very end of October) was staggering! Nina had outdone herself, sourcing everything from butter & cheeses to free-range turkey, produce (including bushels of the last red peppers, bushels of apples, fresh herbs) to peanutbutter, popcorn to pickles, salsa to squashes, sparkling applecider to blackcurrant jam, pear sauce to peach custard pie, 12 kg bags of organic flour to locally handmade pasta, canned peach slices to raspberry cookies, dried beans and much more. Wow! I wish my wagon was bigger to be able to cart home more items (actually it was my handy baby stroller and a large backpack that carted my food home today, as Maya came along with me sleeping all the way).

In the end I had restrained myself and settled on only ordering a few special things that I can't find at our local farmer's market (because I do love going there each Saturday). In particular I was excited about the source for 100-mile nuts that she found. I had not known about the Society of Ontario Nut Growers (or SONG), and their active promotion of nut-tree growing in Ontario (see www.songonline.ca). Nina found a particular farm in the Niagara region that grows chestnuts, hazelnuts and heartnuts in their nut orchard (yes, it's still called an orchard), and was offering these to food buying club members by the pound. I can just imagine savouring these nuts over the course of the winter, bringing them out for after a holiday meal, and roasting the chestnuts in our new woodstove (or even outside in a small fire for a Winter Solstice treat). There is something precious about holding an edible nut (like any seed) in your hand and really thinking about what this means - the potential held within it, the possiblity of a full-grown tree someday - making it all the more potent knowing this nut is fresh, has been sustainably grown and harvested by hand, and came from only an hour or two from here...

The SONG website offers helpful advice for the would-be nut farmer, such as starting a nut orchard, how to harvest nuts, grafting, starting nut trees from seed, value-added products, and more. I was amazed to read that nut trees able to be grown in Ontario make up quite a long list, including the aforementioned heartnuts, hazelnuts, and chestnuts, but also Persian walnuts, black walnut (which we have four of on our property), butternut, buartnut, ginko (didn't know this was an edible nut tree), northern pecan, hican, shellbark and shagbark hickory, nut pines (in our climate the Korean, Swiss and Siberian pines), and even almond. On the site there are links to each variety of nut with more growing details, history, and photos. Many of the nut trees can successfully be started from seed here in Ontario, so I am hopeful to try sprouting some of the nuts I just purchased and start a nut tree orchard of my own. If the seedlings take, I'd love to develop a small urban tree nursery and pass on edible tree seedlings to people at our annual May 24 seedling sale.

www.songonline.ca