Monday, 6 December 2010

The Carrot Cake Contains... "No Nuts".

I am hugely loathed to post this recipe (as it always meets with rave reviews) however, for the greater goal of sustainable seasonal food (and because its not really my recipe in the first place) I will overcome my selfish reluctance and share this gem of a cake.

The recipe was originally entitled "Jenny's Carrot Cake" and comes from the excellent Abel and Cole's Seasonal Cook Book. Unusually (for a carroty type cake) the "Jenny" recipe contained "no nuts" however, whilst my own interpretation does use walnut oil, this can be substituted for sunflower or another flavourless oil.

THE Carrot Cake

Cake Ingredients:
185g sugar
180ml walnut oil
2 eggs
150g self-raising flour*
75g raisins
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
butter for greasing

Icing Ingredients:
175g cream cheese
175g butter at room temperature
250g icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
cinnamon for decoration

  • Preheat the oven to 180°C
  • Grease an 8 inch cake tin ( basically a medium sized tin- loaf or circular) and line with greaseproof paper on the bottom and butter on the sides
  • Beat sugar, oil and eggs together until a little lighter in colour and well mixed
  • Sift the flour and gradually add to the mix, beating all the time.
  • Add the baking power, bicarbonate of soda, salt and cinnamon.
  • Add the raisins (lightly coating them in flour first will stop them sinking to the bottom) and the carrots and stir gently until combined.
  • Pour into the cake tin and bake in the preheated oven for around 30-40 minutes until a cake skewer comes out clean (use a piece of uncooked spaghetti if you don't own a skewer)
  • Let the cake cool before tackling the icing
  • Beat the butter and cream cheese until combined (but not for too long or it will become very runny - if this does happen return to the fridge to cool a little).
  • Then sieve in the icing sugar and beat until combined well.
  • Add your vanilla essence and start to spread liberally over the top of your cake.
  • Sprinkle about 1 tsp of cinnamon over the cake (which handily disguises any surreptitious lumpy bits in the icing).
(if you have any left-over icing it also tastes particularly brilliant sandwiched between 2 Breton crackers, yum yum)
  • Invite over some friends, put the kettle on, dig in!!!


*To make self-raising flour I generally remove 1 tsp of flour per 100g and replace with 1 tsp of baking powder and a pinch of salt. There are more scientific methods but this seems to work just fine.

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