Celebration calls for cake 🧠

Why gut health doesn’t need to mean cutting out joy from food

Well that’s come around fast!

Next Thursday, on the 21st May, my new book Fibre Power hits the shelves.

As we head into publication week next week, it’s time for something celebratory. And that calls for cake.

Like fibre, carrot cake is seen as a bit old fashioned. Yet somehow it doesn’t get treated with the same health glow as beetroot brownies or courgette muffins, even though it’s made with vegetables, nuts and spices.

So it feels very appropriate that, like fibre, it gets a bit of a revitalised image. Because honestly, both deserve a little rebranding.

This carrot cake recipe is very close to my heart. It’s based on an original recipe that my mother would bake for us, whether in square tin traybakes for childhood parties or tarted up for special occasions.

Over time, it became the carrot cake, the kind people remember. Friends asked me to make it for their wedding, and I later made it again for my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding too.

This is the Fibre Power-ed version.

It’s still rich, soft and properly decadent, but with a few fibre-boosting additions like spelt flour, flaxseeds, almond butter and pumpkin seeds - bringing it to 6g of fibre per slice.

One of the reasons I wrote Fibre Power was to show that eating more fibre is often simply about a few tweaks and additions, while still being genuinely delicious.

And of course, not everything you eat needs to be high fibre or ‘optimised’. Especially with celebration food, sometimes all that really matters is that it’s delicious and brings joy.

There’s room for both the classics and a few fibre-boosted favourites too.

And finally - if you’re in the UK, I’ll be speaking at a few events over the next couple of weeks, I’d love to see you there!

• Tuesday 19th May - Chorleywood Bookshop, Chorleywood

• Tuesday 2nd June - David’s Bookshop with Dominique Ludwig, Letchworth

• Sunday 7th June - Cheltenham Science Festival with Kenji Morimoto, Cheltenham

• Saturday 13th June - Borders Book Festival, Scotland

• Thursday 18th June - Toppings & Co., Bath

Chat soon,

Emily xx