The best Carrot Cake

 

MUNCH RATING: 5/5

 

This recipe makes a gorgeous Carrot Cake and is much better than the Rachel Allen one I made! Steve’s Mum declared it the best Carrot Cake she’s ever tasted (and she’s quite the expert!), hence the rather arrogant title! The texture is moist and light, plus the walnuts give a nice crunch.

 

It’s such a simple cake to make and doesn’t require much effort as it’s made with oil, so there’s no creaming of butter and sugar necessary.

 

I don’t like coconut, but you can’t taste it in the cake and it gives it a better texture, so it’s worth adding. The walnuts are optional of course, but we had some knocking around the house as Steve’s Mum always buys the ones in their shell for Christmas and they never get eaten unless I use them in baking!

 

 

There was a bit of a debate in the house about which icing people preferred, so I covered half with a simple buttercream (Steve’s choice) and half with a runny royal icing (Steve’s Mum’s and my choice) as we had some leftover from last week’s birthday cake decorating.

 

• Oven temperature: Gas mark 4/350°F/180°C
• Oven shelf: middle
• You will need: a greased and lined 8 inch square tin

 

Ingredients:

• 150ml (¼ pint) sunflower oil
• 100g (4oz) light soft brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 75g (3oz) golden syrup
• 175g (6oz) self raising flour, sifted
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 100g (4oz) carrots, grated (approx. 1 med-large sized carrot)
• 25g (1oz) desiccated coconut
• ½ Tablespoon walnuts, chopped

 

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to Gas mark 4/350°F/180°C.
2. Whisk together the oil, sugar, eggs and golden syrup using an electric hand mixer.
3. Add the flour, spices, bicarbonate of soda, carrots, coconut and walnuts and gently fold into the mixture with a spoon until well incorporated. Don’t overmix as this will make the cake heavy.
4. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes. A skewer inserted should come out clean. If it’s not done yet, return to the oven for another 5-10 minutes. If the cake is getting too brown then lightly cover with a sheet of foil.
5. Cool in the tin for about 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before icing.

 

To make the buttercream icing for half the cake: Beat 25g (1oz) soft butter until pale and creamy. Add 100g (4oz) of sifted icing sugar and just enough milk to create a soft and fluffy icing. Beat well then spread on top of the cooled carrot cake.

 

COOK’S NOTES:

• You can freeze the cake un-iced

Banana Cake

 

MUNCH RATING: 3/5

 

CHANGES TO THE RECIPE: 

I wanted to make an oil-based Banana Cake, so I found a recipe online and I added my own tweaks. First of all, I used a loaf tin instead of a 7-inch round tin. Secondly, I added some chopped walnuts to add texture. Thirdly, I added some freshly grated nutmeg and some ground cinnamon for added flavour.

 

TASTE TEST:

The cake turned out OK, but it wasn’t very sweet (4 Tablespoons of sugar isn’t much) and it didn’t have a very strong banana flavour, despite the bananas being really ripe. I personally don’t like Banana Cake to have a strong banana taste so this suited me, but I would like it to be sweeter. We liked the walnuts, but I couldn't really taste the ground spices, so I would increase the amount I used next time. Overall it was quite a bland cake, but the texture was quite nice. It was much lighter than some Banana Cakes we’ve had in the past.

Steve and his Mum had it with butter on (because they call it Banana Bread and therefore butter is a necessity!) and Steve tried a bit toasted and he said it brought out the flavour a bit more.

 

The recipe says to grease and line your tin with baking parchment, but I just used my new Cake Release from Lakeland and the cake came out perfectly.

 

I now have 2 other Banana Cake recipes to try: one by Andi Peters which is in the Show Guide from BBC Good Food Show/MasterChef Live, and one in The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. They both use butter instead of oil, so it will be interesting to see how they turn out.

 

• Serves: 8
• Oven temperature: Gas mark 4/350°F/180°C
• Oven shelf: middle
• You will need: a 18cm (7-inch) round deep cake tin or a loaf tin (mine was 23 x 12.5 x 6cm)

 

Ingredients:

• 2 large, ripe bananas, about 400g in total, weighed with
  their skins on
• 250g self-raising flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 4 Tablespoons light muscovado sugar
• a few grates of fresh nutmeg (about ¼ teaspoon of ground)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (will try adding more)
• 6 Tablespoons sunflower oil
• 6 Tablespoons semi-skimmed milk
• 2 large eggs
• 50g walnuts, chopped

 

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to Gas mark 4/350°F/180°C.
2. Grease your tin (and line the bottom with baking parchment).
3. Peel the bananas, then mash with a fork.
4. Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl and stir
   in the sugar, grated nutmeg and ground cinnamon.
5. Whisk together the oil, milk and eggs and
   fold into the flour mixture.
6. Gently fold in the walnuts and mashed bananas until just incorporated – don’t over-mix or the cake will be tough.
7. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 50–55 minutes or until the banana cake is well risen and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
8. Leave to cool for 15 minutes, then loosen the edge of the cake with a knife and turn it out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

 

COOK’S NOTES:

• The banana cake can be kept in an airtight tin for up to 4 days.

Rachel Allen’s Carrot Cake

MUNCH RATING: 1/5

I saw Rachel Allen make this cake on TV the other week and it looked really easy to make and quite delicious. It was easy to make however the quantities for the icing was far too much and I only needed about one third to cover the whole cake.

I had very mixed reviews on this cake, some people really liked the sultanas and others weren’t too keen, as they said it was too much like fruit cake. I personally thought it was OK, but it definitely tasted better the following day. I’d kept it in the fridge because of the cream cheese and I think it being served slightly chilled made a big difference.

For a totally awesome Carrot Cake recipe check this out!

Ingredients: 

For the cake:

• 140ml vegetable oil, plus extra for greasing
• 2 eggs
• 200g soft light brown sugar
• 300g grated carrot, (grated weight)
• 100g raisins (I used sultanas instead)
  
• 75g pecans or walnuts, chopped (optional)
• 180g self-raising flour
• 1 pinch salt
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• ½ tsp mixed spice 

For the cream cheese icing:

• 250g cream cheese, chilled
• 50g butter, at room temperature
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 275g icing sugar, sifted
• 1 orange, zest only

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to Gas mark 2/300°F/150°C. Oil and line a 13 x 23cm loaf tin with greaseproof paper.
2. Beat the eggs in a large bowl, then add the oil, brown sugar, grated carrot, raisins and chopped nuts. 
3. Sift in the rest of the dry ingredients and bring the mixture together using a wooden or large metal spoon until well combined.
4. Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin, smooth the surface and bake in the oven for 1 hour 15 minutes, or until until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
5. Remove from the oven and allow the cake to cool in the tin for about five minutes before removing. Cool completely on a wire rack before serving. 

For the icing: beat the cream cheese and butter together in a bowl until well combined. Add the vanilla extract, icing sugar and finely grated orange zest and mix until the icing is smooth and thick. Using a palette knife, spread the icing evenly over the cooled cake, dipping the knife into a bowl of hot water if the icing is hard to spread out. Cut into slices to serve.