It's birthday month again and as Kim's favourite cake is carrot cake, it was an easy choice. I used my tried and tested carrot cake recipe but added in some walnuts for flavour and texture. I also used them to decorate the sides and edges of the cake. Needless to say, the birthday girl was very happy and I've had a request to make this for someone else who tried it for next year!
I'm entering this to AlphaBakes which I am hosting this month and co-host with Caroline from Caroline Makes. The letter is C for carrot cake.
I'm also entering this to the One Ingredient Challenge hosted by Laura from How to Cook Good Food and co-hosted by Nazima from Franglais Kitchen. The ingredient this month is walnuts which influenced my choice of nuts as I usually prefer pecans in carrot cake but I have to say it was very tasty with the walnuts!
And finally to Made with Love Mondays hosted by Javelin Warrior who asks us to make recipes from scratch.
150ml olive oil
150g muscovado sugar
3 eggs
220g wholemeal flour
1.5 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
zest of 1 orange
100g raisins
250g carrots, peeled and grated
100g walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped plus extra to decorate (about 80g)
For the orange cream cheese frosting
300g cream cheese
50g butter
150g icing sugar
zest of 1 orange
1-2 tablespoons fresh orange juice (depending on consistency of icing requred)
- Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and line 2 x 18cm sandwich tins.
- In a large bowl, whisk the olive oil, sugar and eggs until the sugar has dissolved and the eggs are slightly fluffy.
- In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, bicabonate of soda and spices and add to the egg mixture.
- Add in the remaining ingredients and mix well.
- Divide the mixture evenly between 2 tins (I usually weigh them to get even sized cakes)
- Bake for approximately 25-30 minutes or until the cake springs back from the edge and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
- Allow to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before turning out to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Meanwhile make the frosting by beating all the ingredients in an electric mixer until smooth.
- Sandwich the cakes with frosting and spread a thick layer on top of the cake.
- Decorate with toasted, chopped walnuts on the outside and edge of cake.
You can never have too much carrot cake! (At least for me, anyway...) And I would much prefer a cake like this for a birthday than some vanilla or chocolate thing... This sounds awesome, Ros, and what a compliment to have a cake order in already for next year!
ReplyDeleteI love carrot cake and yes it was a huge compliment :)
DeleteLook amazing Ros!!
ReplyDeleteI love the look of the orange cream cheese frosting, how lush :-) x
ReplyDeleteCarrot cake is something I never tire of. The flavour is delicious , so is the icing which goes so well with the spice flavoured delicate sponge with added texture fro the walnuts. Thanks for entering One Ingredient!
ReplyDeleteI love carrot cake too especially with the icing. Thanks for choosing walnuts this month as I usually use pecans so it was nice to try something else for a change.
Deletelovely recipe Ros, I love carrot cake and this version looks scrumptious. I think I like the buttercream as much as the cake and I see yours has a particularly generous layer of it! yum
ReplyDelete