Gluten Free Agave Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

After bringing baked goods to my brother's event a few weeks ago, a woman wanted to hire me to make a carrot cake for her daughter's birthday!  She wanted it gluten free and refined sugar free.  Yikes.  I knew I could use agave, but I had never baked with it before.  I got started on test batches immediately.

It turned out to be very easy to substitute agave for sugar.  According to advice I read on various websites, I ended up using 1/4 a cup more flour and 1/3 cup less sweetener than my original recipe called for.  This is to compensate for substituting a liquid sweetener for a solid one.

I bought agave from Trader Joe's.  It was less than half the price of the agave at my local health food store ($3 vs. $8 per bottle).  You'll need 2 cups total of agave for this recipe, which is two of these bottles:

This is a really easy recipe.  I like it because it only requires one bowl.  I do not like it because you have to grate a pound of carrots.  Don't let this deter you, that's the hardest part by far.  This recipe is for a 10 inch round cake, but you can make it a different size and simply alter the cooking time.

Ingredients
Cake:
4 eggs
1 cup applesauce
1 pound grated carrots
2 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour (I used 1 1/2 cups Bob's All Purpose GF Flour, and 3/4 cup rice flour)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/3 cup agave

Frosting:
1/4 cup butter (1/2 a stick)
8 ounces cream cheese (I used low fat, but it works either way)
2/3 cups agave
1 tsp vanilla

To Do:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
• Stir together the eggs and applesauce
• Grate the carrots and add them to the bowl
• Add the vanilla and stir
• Add the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and agave.  Stir.
• Pour the batter into a greased 10 inch round cake pan and bake for 45 minutes
• Allow the cake to cool completely before frosting
• To make the frosting: beat together the butter, cream cheese, agave, and vanilla until smooth

Not only is this recipe gluten free and made with agave, but I like to pretend it's healthy because it has applesauce instead of over a cup of butter.  The applesauce and agave make it really moist.

Enjoy!