Carrot coconut and almond cake recipe

This cake came about as a way to use up a couple of carrots that were

Carrot coconut and almond cake 

still sitting in our veg rack, a bit beyond their best. I looked at a few other recipes online but they all called for what seemed to me to be a ridiculous amount of oil. A couple of oil-free recipes used nuts instead and I had a half pack of ground almonds left over from making our Valentine's Day chocolate marzipans. Not enough to fulfil any recipe requirements though, so instead I made up the difference with wholemeal flour and then purloined the remainder of a tin of coconut milk that Dave had needed for a Goan curry. All the liquid was gone but there was a good three tablespoons of the soft cream coconut which turned out to be perfect for moistening this cake!

Ingredients
60g ground almonds
150g sugar (inc 1 tbsp vanilla sugar if you have it)
120g finely grated carrot
1 tsp grated lemon zest and a splash of lemon juice
2 eggs
120 g wholemeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
Most of the solid cream in a 400g tin of coconut milk (discard the liquid)

Preheat the oven to 180c

Place the grated carrot in a large mixing bowl with the ground almonds and the sugars. Add the lemon zest and juice.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and mix well.

Mix in the flour, baking powder and spices. When well combined, beat in the coconut cream.

Spoon the mixture into a greased loaf tin and bake at 180c for about an hour. The cake is cooked when an inserted skewer or cocktail stick comes out clean. If the top starts darkening too quickly, cover it with loose aluminium foil.

I realised, after baking the cake, that I also have a part-bag grated coconut in the cupboard that needs using up. If I had remembered sooner, it might have been nice to sprinkle some over the top of the cake, in lieu of icing.