Last Minute Substitution

You know how it is...you see a recipe in a cookbook that you want to try.  You go and get the ingredients only to realise that in fact you are missing a key piece of this particular culinary puzzle. 

Since reading A Homemade Life a few weeks ago, I'd been desperate to try Molly Wizenberg's Banana Bread with Chocolate and Crystallized Ginger.  I'd bought in stem ginger especially and a slab of plain chocolate had been lurking in my cupboard just waiting for such a recipe.  This morning, I woke up with the plan that today was the day and Banana Bread would make a perfect mid-morning snack for E and I.

Except...no bananas.  We buy bananas by the bunches, but they rarely survive more than a few days around here as Ellis and I love them.  We'd happily eat 2 or 3 a day each if we could.  So the banana bread blan was just not to be.

Hunting through the fridge for a suitable cake-like alternative, I spied my drawer full of carrots.  You see, we have carrots coming out of our ears around here.  They are delivered weekly in our vegetable box and I barely manage to get through half of one lot before next Thursday rolls around and half a dozen more are delivered.

And so a plan was born...Carrot, Chocolate and Ginger Cake has now become my favourite carrot cake recipe of all time (and I have tried a lot!!). The best part of it--it uses 3 carrots just like that. Its moist, fresh with a bit of orange zest and not too sweet (I reduced the sugar from the original recipe by two thirds)...oh and terribly moreish. 

Carrot, Chocolate and Ginger Cake

6 tablespoon (85g) melted butter

2 cups (250g) white flour

1/4 cup (56g) sugar

3/4 teaspoon baking soda (bicarb)

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup (aprox 150g) chopped plain chocolate

1/3 cup (aprox 100g) finely chopped stem/cystallized ginger

2 eggs

1.5 cups (aprox 180g) grated carrot (about 3 medium carrots)

1/4 cup plain yoghurt

Grated zest of one orange

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Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Mix together flour, sugar, baking soda (bicarb) and salt. Mix in the chocolate and the ginger.  Set Aside.

In another bowl, beat eggs and add the carrots, youghurt, melted butter and orange zest.  Pour the wet mix into theh dry mix and stir thoroughly.

Place batter into a greased loaf pan (9x5 or 2 pound loaf tin works great for this).  Bake until golden brown and a knife comes out clean, aprox 45-55 minutes.