Carrot Cake

Cute little carrot, anyone?

Attempted Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, including these adorable little carrots which I made out of marzipan.

You can see strands of carrot here and walnuts. This is the first time I made a cake using cooking oil instead of the usual butter. Using cooking oil gives the cake a more crumbly texture. I think the cake would have done better aesthetically, if I added more cinnamon powder for a darker colour. But the cake did turn out moist and not too sweet, balancing well with the sweeter frosting. Frosting turned out a little more liquid than I would prefer, probably because I used more cream cheese than called for.

Since I had no lessons today, I made a raisin loaf again. This must be my nicest looking loaf so far, with that beautiful brown.

As I was making the carrot cake, I wish I was actually making a sticky date pudding! Oh well, that shall be my next attempt!

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Carrot Cake Recipe

Cake Ingredients:

Walnuts 100g

Carrots (grated) 340g

All Purpose Flour 280g

Baking Soda 1tsp

Baking Powder 1tsp

Salt 1/2tsp

Ground Cinnamon 2tsp

Eggs 4

Caster sugar 300g

Vegetable Oil 240ml

Vanilla essence 2tsp

Crushed pineapple 200g

1. Toast walnuts until lightly brown and fragrant.

2. Mix well flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon powder, and set aside.
3. Beat eggs until frothy. Add in sugar and continue beating until mixture is pale yellow in colour. Beat in crushed pineapple, oil and vanilla extract until incorporated.
4. Add in flour mixture from Step 2 and beat until well mixed.
5. Fold in carrots and walnuts using a spatula.
6. Divide batter into 2 equal portions, and pour into 2 identical sized and buttered pan of choice.
7. Bake at 180 degrees C for about 35 minutes.

Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients:

Unsalted butter 57g

Cream Cheese 227g

Icing sugar 230g

Vanilla essence 1tsp

Grated zest of 1 lemon

1. Beat butter and cream cheese together until well mixed.

2. Sift icing sugar and add in, mixing well.

3. Beat in vanilla essence and lemon zest.

If too liquid, refrigerate for a while in freezer so that it is thicker and easier to coat.

Assembly:

1. Make sure the 2 cake sections are flat. Slice to flatness if necessary.

2. Spread frosting above one section, and place other section above it.

3. Using remaining frosting, coat cake all around.