This pineapple carrot cake recipe is pretty healthy as far as cake recipes go.
Not only does it have grated carrots, as all carrot cakes do. It also has the addition of crushed unsweetened pineapple and raisins. Both of these add moisture and a wonderful sweetness to the cake without adding more sugar.
This healthy cake recipe also uses whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour.
Many people, including traditional nutritionists, will tell you that there is no difference in nutrient value between white sugar and honey. Many natural health practitioners would disagree. Honey has many more micro nutrients than sugar and is a much healthier alternative. Of course, we can get too much of either, which is another reason this recipe is so fantastic. It only has 1/3 cup of honey in the entire recipe, because the pineapple acts as a sweetener.
This is a very healthy cake recipe, full of “good for us” ingredients, from the whole wheat flour, carrots, nuts and coconut.
Of course you can use white flour in place of the whole wheat flour. The fiber content of the recipe will reduce dramatically, but it will still taste great.
You won’t see many cakes listed in our list of good diabetic recipes and I hesitated to include this because strict diabetes diet nutrition doesn’t include much honey.
Diabetes recipes can include a bit of sugar or honey though and some diabetics can handle it, especially if it is just a small piece. If you can’t, simply replace the honey with an equivalent amount of coconut sugar or stevia. Add liquid to equal what you would have if you had used the honey so the cake is still moist. Of course if you need this cake as a diabetes recipe, icing isn’t advised.
Pineapple Carrot Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup honey
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 egg
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 cup carrots, finely shredded
- 1/2 cup raisins, ideally golden or Sultana
- 3 tablespoons milk
- 8 ounces canned pineapple, unsweetened, crushed and drained
- 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly spray a 13"x9"x2" baking pan with nonstick vegetable spray and set it aside.
- Combine the honey, oil, vanilla and egg in a medium bowl. Stir together well and set the bowl aside.
- Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon. Add the flour mixture to the honey mixture, stirring well. Add the carrots, raisins, milk, pineapple and chopped walnuts. Stir well.
- Spread the mixture into the prepared baking pan and bake for 25 minutes or until the cake is golden.
Nutrition
Let the cake cool and cut it into bars. Store loosely covered in the refrigerator.
Makes 2 dozen carrot cake bars.
Variation:
I prefer my cake plain, but you and your family may love it iced. If you do prefer an iced cake, you can slice the cake in half horizontally and ice the middle and top of the cake with either white icing or cream cheese icing. Top the cake with more chopped walnuts for a nice presentation.
If you want to ice this pineapple carrot cake recipe with cream cheese icing, find a recipe here.
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What kind of milk should be used?
Hi Kristina
It is a very small amount of milk so use whatever you have. It will be fine.