Vegan carrot bread with cardamom and coconut

Last week, I had the privilege of being offered a cookbook for review on this here blog—specifically, Bob’s Red Mill’s Everyday Gluten-Free by Camilla V. Saulsbury. As someone who often uses Bob’s Red Mill products in baking and who is interested in the idea of using different whole grains besides wheat, I happily accepted. And you know what? It’s pretty cool.

The book begins with a chapter describing the context and nutritional information of several of the staple ingredients used in the recipe, including amaranth, buckwheat, chia seeds, millet, oats, quinoa, rice, sorghum, teff, and psyllium husk. She even goes on to explain how these ingredients are prepared and basic instructions on how to cook them. Which is amazingly helpful, for me. Who knows how to cook a thing like amaranth, anyway? Turns out, you can both simmer it and pop it. Like corn.

Within the seven chapters, there are 281 recipes, from breakfast to soups to vegetarian entrees to, of course dessert. There is one chapter about seafood, poultry, and meat main dishes, but I found the majority of the recipes were vegetarian and many of them easily veganizable (yes that’s totally a word). Based on that, I can’t really recommend the cookbook to strict vegans, but since this blog is patronized by baking enthusiasts, practitioners of specialty diets, and regular ol’ omnivores alike, it’s probably a safe bet to say that the recipes in here look delicious and worth your time.

For example. Russian butternut squash and buckwheat soup. Lemon chia seed pancakes. Crispy amaranth cakes with mint raita. Multi-seed bread. Olive oil cake with cherries and dark chocolate chunks. You get the idea—the recipes in here are incredibly diverse and make creative use of the grains I mentioned above, and I say that straight from the heart. Ain’t no one handing me wads of Benjamins to tell you that.

Aaaanyway. I hope to make some of both the sweet and savory recipes from here in the near future—but in the meantime, I whipped up some carrot quick bread from the “breads, muffins, and snacks” chapter. It’s almost like carrot cake, with the buttery texture and rich, wholesome flavor. The addition of cardamom might be a bit polarizing, but if you like it, you’ll probably like what it does for the bread. 

You will. Don't resist.

Remember that I did veganize it by just subbing one little ingredient—the eggs. I used flaxseed and water, one of my favorite vegan egg substitutes. Feel free to use two chicken eggs if you want. Also, if you can’t find any of the weirder ingredients (like, um, sorghum flour?) at the store, you can totally order them online. Bob’s Red Mill has literally any flour you can think of, for one.

Here’s the recipe.

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Vegan carrot bread with cardamom and coconut

Adapted from Everyday Gluten-Free

Ingredients

128 grams • sorghum flour • 2/3 cup

80 grams • millet flour • 2/3 cup

127 grams • potato starch • 2/3 cup

8 grams • baking powder • 2 teaspoons

2 grams • cardamom • 1 teaspoon

2 grams • baking soda • ½ teaspoon

3 grams • salt • ½ teaspoon

120 grams • light brown sugar • 1 cup

13 grams • ground flaxseed • 2 tablespoons

105 grams • warm water • ¼ cup plus 3 tablespoons

113 grams • coconut oil, melted • ½ cup

220 grams • shredded carrots • 2 cups

116 grams • shredded unsweetened coconut • 1 ¼ cups

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan and line with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine sorghum flour, millet flour, potato starch, baking powder, cardamom, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl, whisk together brown sugar, flaxseed, water, coconut oil, shredded carrots, and shredded coconut.

Pour wet ingredients into dry and stir together gently until combined. Pour batter into baking pan and bake for 75 to 85 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 20 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Slice and serve.

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I'mma take one of those nice, fat slices.

On the theme of delicious cake-like quick breads, here are some other posts you’ll like.

Sweet cornbread loaf. Sweet and cakey cornbread, just the way I (personally) like it.

Peanut butter zucchini bread. Starring homemade peanut butter chips!

Double chocolate zucchini bread. Almost like eating chocolate cake for a snack.

Oh, and some carrot cake for good measure!