Carrot Cake.

Hello everyone! Welcome to my new blog and a very happy Easter to you all! I thought I would start by sharing this delicious carrot cake recipe with you which, I made last weekend for my sister's 26th birthday as I thought it would be the perfect cake for this Easter weekend. 

It is a lovely recipe and a gorgeously moist cake with a nice cinnamon flavour and a lovely cream cheese frosting. I've never been the best at making large cakes, in fact you can almost guarantee that every time the lid goes on all of the filling will squidge out the centre and my cake will be left looking like a sloppy mess. I tend to stick to baking cupcakes which seem to be more forgiving to my impatient, slap everything together attitude but, as it was my sister's birthday I thought that I would give this carrot cake a go and I was very pleased with the results. I even managed to colour some marzipan orange and green and create my own little carrots which I don't think look too shabby. So, whatever you are doing this Easter weekend whether it be; having an easter egg hunt in the garden with the kids, munching on hot cross buns, relaxing in the sun with a few days off work or whipping up this carrot cake or some of your own Easter treats, have a lovely time!

Recipe

For the Carrot Cake:
100g walnuts and pecans
340g raw carrots, finely grated
260g self-raising flour
1 tsp. bicarbonate of soda
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
4 large eggs
300g caster sugar
240ml sunflower oil
2 tsp. vanilla essence
120ml pureed pineapple 
For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
300g icing sugar
50g butter
125g mascarpone or full-fat cream cheese such as, Philadelphia
1 tsp. finely grated orange zest (optional)

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/ 180°C fan and grease and line the base of two cake tins with greaseproof paper.

2. Chop the walnuts and pecans coarsely and toast in the oven for about 8 minutes until lightly brown and fragrant.

3. Peel and finely grate the carrots.

4. In a large bowl mix together the walnuts and pecans, sieved self-raising flour, cinnamon, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt.

5. In another bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the eggs until frothy (about 1 minute). Gradually add the sugar and whisk until the batter is thick and pale in colour (about 3-4 minutes). Add the oil in a steady stream and then beat in the vanilla extract. Pour the liquid into the flour mixture along with the pureed pineapple (blitz pineapple chunks in a food processor until pureed) and beat until incorporated.

6. Fold in the grated carrot and evenly divide the batter between the two cake tins.

7. Bake for about 25 minutes or until the cakes are just firm to touch and a skewer inserted comes out clean.

8. Remove from the oven and after about 5 minutes remove the cakes from the tins and allow to cool on a wire rack.

9. Make the cream cheese frosting by beating the cream cheese, sieved icing sugar, butter and orange zest, if using, together with an electric whisk, blending until there are no lumps and the frosting is light, fluffy and smooth. 

10. Spread about half of the cream cheese frosting on the top of one cake, leaving a gap of about 1cm around the edge to allow for spreading when you place the other cake on top. Spread the remaining cream cheese frosting on top and sprinkle with cinnamon or grated chocolate e.g. terry's chocolate orange. Arrange walnut pieces around the edge or bought or homemade marzipan carrots. I used a few drops of red food colouring to colour some golden marzipan orange and some blue food colouring to colour some golden marzipan green. I then formed little carrots and used a tooth pick to indent them.

It is also easy to convert this recipe into cupcakes and the mixture will produce about 24 cupcakes but, it can be halved if you only want 12. If making the full 24 cupcakes you may need to double the quantity of frosting. Pipe a swirl of frosting on the top of each cupcake and top with a walnut or marzipan carrot.