I came to a bit of a carrot cake conundrum this week when looking for a recipe to use for a fathers day treat (as requested by papa sax) theres obviously tons of variations of every kind of cake, everyone has thier own preferred versions or family recipe's but i must have seriously missed the memo that there is about 500 different ways to make carrot cake! I thought i'd just look one up and have everything i needed already yet every recipe calls for something different and i didn't come across one the same.. after browsing all the books in the house i whittled it down to the following few:
Lorraine Pascales 3 tier carrot cake (asks for 9 eggs!)
Lili Vanilli's carrot cake (made with an entire bottle of fruit smoothie and spelt flour)
Magnolia bakery carrot cake (asked for many complex americany things i didn't have time to source)
Jamie Olivers 'a rather pleasing carrot cake' from his 'cook with jamie' book
In the end i went for Jamies recipe- mostly for the simplicity of the recipe- this was my first attempt at solo carrot cake baking and so i wanted to keep the ingredients to a minimum!
Luckily for me i don't have to type it out as old good jamie is so trendy its on his site, all 'pukka' and ready to go (and luckily for you guys that means less rambling from me)-
HOWEVER my tips for this 'simple' recipe to actually make it more simple (like it should be) and to stop you using every grater/zester/spoon/mixing bowl/whisk/chopping board in the house in a bit of a flap (as i ended up doing when halfway through mixing ingredients i forgot i needed to zest and squeeze my orange, chop the walnuts finely and ground nutmeg and cloves etc etc)
SO- before you start this-
-weigh your carrots out once grated- not when they are whole
-seperate your 5 eggs! it doesn't state this anywhere in the recipe?!
-finely chop walnuts, zest and juice the orange, grate the nutmeg and crush the cloves first thing and set to one side so you can add them in quickly (i had to stop everything halfway through which left my mixture sitting for quite a while!)
-use a small to medium size orange, not an L, the one i used was pretty much a wannabee mango and i think made my cake too moist and dense and therefore resulting in a flat cake
-don't split between 2 21cm cake tins or you will be left with 2 very skinny (in my case slightly sunken and flat- sadface) cakes rather than a lovely thick cake like a traditional carrot cake should be!
However it's whats on the inside that counts with cakes such as this, and im incredibly frustrated that the sponge turned out so dense after been in oven for 60 minutes! Considering this recipe has baking powder, self raising flower and egg whites in i do not understand why both my cakes sank when i took them out the oven and then uncovered a very damp sponge when cutting into it.
Anyway im set on making it again and tweaking it to get the perfect sponge. The recipe was a joy to make and the orange and spices came through amazingly making it a very moreish and fresh cake.
Im happy with the end result now its been iced, it has a nice homemade look to it and perfect for elevensies on fathers day, maybe it will taste so nice my dad will momentarily forget about me turning the heating up in june/leaving lights switched on all around the house/not cleaning my car/owing him money....
Holly x
