Carrot (Juicer Pulp) Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I received a juicer this year for Christmas and I love it! I have been juicing everything in sight; carrots, apples, oranges, bananas, pineapples, carrots, celery, beets...  red cabbage. The juice has been amazing, so much better than store bought!

However, one of the drawbacks of any juicer (in my opinion) is the pulp. There's a lot of it. Initially I put it into my composter, but that bothered me. The pulp wasn't completely dry and it contained a lot of fibre as well as nutrients. It just seemed wasteful to me to be dumping it into my garden. I did a quick check online to see what others were doing with their leftover pulp and to my surprise I came across some really interesting recipes for crackers, muffins, soups and cakes.

The first time I made this cake, I followed an online recipe which used 2 parts carrot pulp to one part flour. My cake turned out so heavy and dense, it was like one giant hockey puck!

I looked through a couple of cookbooks to check proportions and discovered that depended on whether the carrots were pureed or shredded. The Silver Palate Cookbook suggested about 2 parts flour to 1 part carrot puree whereas Maida Heatter's, Great Book of American Desserts suggested 1 part flour to 2 parts "shredded" carrots. I experimented a bit and found what worked best for me was a combination of juicer pulp and shredded carrot at a ratio of 1 part flour to 1 1/4 parts carrots. This yielded a nice moist cake with a lovely texture.

Check out the link for the icing sugar. I made my own for the frosting, using sucanat!

carrot cake (one 9 inch layer)
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup unbleached flour
1/2 cup sucanat or brown sugar
*1 1/2 tsp Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder (optional)
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 pinches salt
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup carrot pulp
**1/4 - 1/3 cup carrot juice, if needed
1/2 cup shredded carrots, packed

1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped and toasted

1/4 cup unsweetened coconut

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Grease and flour a 9 inch cake springform and tap out the excess flour. Cut a piece of parchment paper to line the bottom of the pan. Set aside.

Combine the flour, sucanat, cocoa powder (*Maida Heatter added cocoa powder to her carrot cake resulting in a darker batter) cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl whisk together the oil, yogurt and eggs. Whisk in the carrot pulp. **If the mixture seems too thick/dry after adding the carrot pulp, you might need to add some carrot juice. The finished consistency should be similar to "regular" yogurt which has been whisked. 

Stir in the dry ingredients until they are well combined. Fold the shredded carrots, raisins, walnuts and coconut into the batter, then pour the the batter into the prepared cake pan.

Smooth the top and bake for about 30-45 minutes or until the sides begin to pull away from the pan and a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan, then remove the cake and peel off the parchment paper. 

cream cheese frosting

4 oz cream cheese (1/2 package)

2 tbsp butter, at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

2/3 cup icing sugar

Place the cream cheese, butter and vanilla extract into the bowl of a food processor. Process, using pulses until the mixture is smooth.

Add the icing sugar; about half at a time and process until it's completely mixed in.

Spread the frosting over the top and sides of the cooled cake.