Flourless Carrot Cake (Gajar Ka Halwa)

I've had this flourless, no bake carrot cake before, in Nepalese restaurants, but never knew how to make it. Luckily, Donna (of Dine with Donna) asked a restaurant owner for the recipe. It turns out the cake is really easy to make. Basically, shredded carrots are cooked in a dry pan over medium heat until all the moisture evaporates -- then, milk, butter, and sugar are added in turn, and cooked until the liquid reduces -- and finally, cinnamon, coconut powder, and ground cardamom are stirred into the carrot mixture.

While the resulting cake is delicious, the recipe is worth making for the smell of freshly ground cardamom, alone.

Dine with Donna featured the cake more than a month ago, but it took me a while to make it because I didn't have the coconut powder called for in the recipe. I finally just decided to use coconut flour, which worked just fine (and maybe is the same thing?). You can find coconut flour at health food stores.

Recipe here.