Why I’m Grateful For A Simple Wartime Carrot Cake Recipe

My nine-year old son is learning about World War II at school and had to research wartime food for his project. While looking for wartime recipes, I came across one for a wartime carrot cake on the National Trust website.

Apparently, due to the rationing of sugar, carrots were often used to provide added sweetness to wartime bakes. And the humble carrot reached an elevated status, with the Ministry of Food Cookery Leaflet declaring it, “one of the most valuable of all our root vegetables“.

Carrot and gratitude

So what has this got to do with gratitude? Well, the same leaflet went on to say about carrots that, “we are apt to take them a little too much for granted and to forget how rich they are in protective elements“. And I think this can be said of a lot of things today.

Stopping for a moment to be grateful for not just the big things in life but also the small things can really help boost a positive mood. I try to think of three things to be grateful for every day. Often, my focus is my family and friends but, if I’m being honest, also the more material or indulgent things in life. And my glass of wine at the end of a long day!

But honing in on the everyday simple things in life is just as important. Like the constant that is the bag of carrots in my fridge. Or the few (admittedly tiny) carrots I grew this year. Wartime cookery books show us that there was a time when carrots were a key part of the nation’s diet. And, in modern-day times, there are many families who aren’t able to rely on having that bag of carrots in their fridge. Or who would love to grow their own but don’t have a garden in which to do so.

Recognising the above pushes home how lucky I am. And how I do take a lot of things in my life for granted.

The simple pleasures in life

Sometimes it is the pleasure we can derive from the simplest of things that gets overlooked in life. I often get carried away with elaborate recipes. I will extravagantly buy that expensive ingredient I’ll use a teaspoon of and end up throwing away the rest. But the recipe below requires just a few ingredients (all of which I had in my cupboard/fridge). And it was easy to make (my son did most of it as part of his project). And it still tasted great with a cup of tea. It’s also on the healthier end of the cake scale, which is an added bonus!

I did make a couple of tweaks to the original wartime carrot cake recipe to make it gluten-free – mainly so that I could eat it! And I added a couple of spices but those are optional. The carrot though is still the star of the show.

Print Recipe

Gluten-Free Wartime Carrot Cake

A simple gluten-free carrot cake based on the original wartime recipe.

Prep Time20 minutes mins

Cook Time40 minutes mins

Course: Cake

Cuisine: British

Equipment

• 20cm cake tin

Ingredients

• 230 g gluten-free self-raising flour
• 85 g baking margarine / butter
• 85 g caster sugar
• ½ tsp xanthan gum
• 115 g grated carrot
• 55 g sultanas
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)
• 1 tsp ground ginger (optional)
• 1 egg
• 3-4 tbsp milk

Instructions 

• Pre-heat the oven to 200°C / 180°C (fan) / gas mark 4.
• Grease and line the baking tin.
• Sift the flour and xanthan gum into a bowl.
• Rub in the margarine / butter.
• Add the sugar, cinnamon and ginger.
  
• Add the egg, sultanas and grated carrot and mix.
  
• Add the milk – you want quite a wet mix as the gluten-free flour absorbs more liquid.
• Add to the cake tin, level it off and place in the oven.
• Cook for around 40 minutes – until golden and a skewer comes out clean.
  
• Leave to cool in the tin before serving (ideally with a cup of tea!)
  

Notes

• To make a non-gluten-free version, simply swap the gluten-free self-raising flour for standard self-raising flour and do not add the xanthan gum.

 

Recipe inspired by the National Trust’s wartime carrot cake recipe.