Can I Use Flour for the Venetian Carrot Cake?

Our answer

We would not recommend switching the ground almonds (almond meal) in the Venetian Carrot Cake for flour as the almonds are in the cake to keep it moist and crumbly. If flour is used then it will absorb some of the liquid from the carrots, making the cake dry. Also the glutens in the flour will make the cake tougher and feel denser (particularly as there is no raising agent in the cake). The end result would be fairly unappetizing.

The rum in the cake mixture is partly there for flavour and partly to hydrate the sultanas (golden raisins) to make them moist and plump. In this cake you can substitute orange juice for the rum. In the mascarpone cream you could either use a few drops of rum flavouring or vanilla extract instead of the rum (or seeds from a vanilla pod if you can only get flavourings with an alcohol base and really need to avoid even the smallest trace of alcohol). You could also try Nigella's Carrot Cupcakes from Domestic Goddess (p42) if you would like a recipe that uses flour and no alcohol.