It was my sister's birthday last week, and she had a little dinner-do with a few friends.. So, we spent the entire day cooking and baking. The main desert - carrot cake. I've had the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook for a while now, and there are just so many amazing recipes in here. Keep an eye out for future posts where I try all these amazing cake recipes out!
It's a really moist cake, and keeps you going back for more!! Little bit dangerous in my opinion..
Ingredients
300g light brown sugar
3 eggs
300ml sunflower oil
300g plain flour
1tsp bicarb
1tsp baking powder
1tsp ground cinnamon
1/2tsp ground ginger
1/2tsp salt
1/4tsp vanilla extract
300g carrots, grated
100g walnuts, chopped
First, preheat the oven to 170C, and line three 20cm cake pans (I only had two, so I made this a two tier cake instead. I just didn't use all the mixture, and with the excess I made a couple of extra cupcakes.. If you have three cake tins, use them!)
Beat the sugar, eggs and oil together using a hand-mixer (or free-standing, whichever you have). Add in the flour, bicarb, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, salt, vanilla and keep beating.
Stir in the carrots and walnuts using a spatula, and then pour into the baking pans.
Bake for about 20-25 mins until golden and bouncy.
Once cooled a little, turn onto a cooling rack and leave for a little longer.
Now, frosting.
Because I only had two layers, I used a little less than called for by the book..
But, it should be okay.
I just used my standard cream-cheese frosting - this stuff is heavenly. In the past, I've actually had requests from friends for a bowl of the frosting, without the cake!! Mmmmm
50g unsalted butter, softened
125g cream cheese, soft
300g icing sugar - don't even bother sifting.. EFFORT
little splash of vanilla
Beat the ingredients together until light and creamy. And then once the cake layers are cooled, assemble the cake!
Sandwich the layers together, and then cover the entire cake with frosting.
After, get some more whole walnuts and sprinkle them on top, along with a little dusting of cinnamon - YUM
Amazing.
And also, for desert, we had a few chocolate covered strawberries. I think I've mastered the technique to letting them dry without leaving marks.
Get wooden skewers, poke each one, and dip. And then somehow balance them like this. It was all well and good until my lovely mum came into the kitchen and accidentally knocked them all over!!! Oh well, they still tasted good.
Can't stop thinking about this cake...
