What does one do with pounds and pounds of carrots in the house? Last week we had about 30 pounds of carrots (it’s an estimate, yes) leftover at the office from our farmers’ market. I brought 1 bunch home. By the end of the week, the rest of the carrots were still in the office fridge and on their last leg so I decided I would take them home before they got composted. I became the proud owner of way too many pounds of carrots.

Then… I saw a blog post by Alice Medrich. Know Alice Medrich? You should. Alice is the chocolate queen of America, of the world? I don’t know. What I do know is that when I received her newest book (a couple of years ago now), Pure Dessert, it changed my world. If you eat gluten, might I suggest her super simple and delicious olive oil pound cake? Yum. She has some naturally gluten free recipes and a few of her recipes call for such a small amount of flour that I’ve been experimenting with alternative flours and so far so good. But I’ll get to that another day.

I digress. Her blog flashed in front of my facebook page and it starred carrots AND more importantly, I peeked at the ingredients and without her explicitly pointing it out I happened to notice that her carrot almond torte has ZERO gluten in it and no dairy to boot. So… that will take care of at least a few of those carrots.

I invited a few friends over for tastings and they LOVED this. Here is the link to Alice’s recipe and pictures of my results: Alice’s Carrot Torte. Holy deliciousness. I was concerned at the length of the instructions, which made me nervous that this would be very complicated, but once I got going it was a snap and the results were great. I only had blanched slivered almonds, rather than the whole almonds she calls for, so this may have made a big difference. I think that would have given it a slightly fluffier, less wet texture. My friend Lisa said she might prefer some walnut chunks in there which sounded delightful to me too. I didn’t serve it with whipped cream, and I thought it was plenty sweet but there was a suggestion of serving it with a dollop of greek yogurt perhaps drizzled with honey too. I’d say that would be oh so do-able. The whole torte was gone in 20 minutes. Success! Alice, you’ve done it again.

Grated carrots and egg whites ready to fold

Folding

Finished (minus a little sliver)