Gluten Free Carrot Pineapple Cake

With my abundance of carrots, I've been experimenting a little bit and trying some new things. I started with Nigella's Venitian Carrot Cake recipe and took some creative liberties with it. It uses almond flour instead of wheat flour so it's a more dense "cake" than what you'd normally think of when you think carrot cake. This also means it's gluten free!

For the cake:

1/2 cup olive oil (not extra-virgin)
2 cups grated carrots
1/2 cup golden rasins
1 cup chopped fresh pineapple (I don't know why canned wouldn't work but I used fresh)
1/4 cup pineapple juice
1/2 cup sugar or sweetner of your choice
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
2 1/2 cups almond flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
Zest and juice of 1 lemon

You'll also need a 9" springform pan.

Mix the raisins with the pineapple and pineapple juice and let them soak while you work on other things.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line the base of your springform with parchment paper or grease it really well.

Pat the carrots dry with a towel to blot up excess moisture.

Whisk the sugar and olive oil together. Whisk in the vanilla and eggs. Fold in the ground almonds, carrots, raisin pineapple mix, cinnamon, nutmeg, and the lemon zest and juice.

Pour the batter into the springform pan and smooth the top the best you can. It will be rather thin, probably only an inch or so high in the pan.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick in the middle comes out mostly clean. It was done in my oven at about 34 minutes, so just keep your eye on it.

Let cool for about 15 minutes on a rack before you pop the sides off the springform.

For the topping:
250 grams (about 1 cup) Mascarpone
1 tbsp powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Mix together well and spread over the top of the cake.

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