Another carrot cake

It's birthday season at the moment which means a constant layer of icing sugar dust in my kitchen. Yay?

For last week's birthday I tried another new-to-me carrot cake recipe as there's no point in having a shelf full of baking books if I always default to the same handful of recipes. This one is from Vintage Cakes, one of my favourite books to flick through as it's full of pictures of homely bakes on pretty vintage china. To be honest I'm surprised I haven't baked this recipe before.

I think I preferred this cake to the one I made for the Man's birthday. The texture felt less wet and I've come to the conclusion I prefer the flavour of a carrot cake made with dark muscovado sugar as opposed to light brown sugar. I think it brings out the spices more.

Sadly I only have one picture of this cake so you'll just have to believe me when I say it was a winner and looked very satisfying when cut.

Carrot layer cake

Recipe (once again, slightly adapted to suit what I had available) from Vintage Cakes by Jane Brocket. I also did my own thing with the icing.

Sponges:

250g self raising flour

2tsp baking powder 

In all honesty I can't remember how much spice I added, but probably 1tsp ground cinnamon and 1/2 tsp mixed spice

100g pecans, chopped 

250g dark soft brown sugar 

220ml sunflower oil

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

250g carrots, grated 

Icing:

300g icing sugar

Approx. 75g softened butter ( I used slightly salted)

Approx. 250g cream cheese (that's all I had at the time)

Zest of half an orange

Preheat the oven to 180C/ 160C fan/ gas 4. Grease and line 3 20cm/ 8" round cake tins with baking parchment.

Combine the dry ingredients into a bowl: flour, baking powder and spices. Stir in the chopped pecans.

In a large bowl mix together the sugar and oil. Add the eggs and whisk again until smooth.

Add the grated carrots and the dry mix (flour and nuts) to the wet mix (eggs, sugar, oil) and mix everything together until well combined.

Divide the mixture between the cake tins and bake in the oven for approx. 25 minutes, until well risen, firm to touch and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave the cakes to cool for a few minutes before removing from their tins and leaving to cool fully on a wire cooling rack.

For the icing mix together the butter, orange zest and icing sugar then add the cream cheese and mix until everything is smooth and fully combined. (Tip: if you have a stand mixer and find your icing goes lumpy try swapping the paddle attachment for the whisk attachment. I usually find the whisk helps to incorporate the stubborn butter lumps.)

Once the cakes are cool, spread the icing onto each sponge and stack into a layer cake. Optional: add chopped pecans on top for decoration.

Carrot and orange cake

Surprisingly, I'm not returning with another variation of mini tarts (although I still really want to bake a lemon curd version) but with a carrot cake I baked for the Man's birthday last week.

Last year I baked the carrot and ginger cake from the Hummingbird Bakery's "Cake Days" book for his birthday. Hummingbird Bakery sure do know how to make an excellent carrot cake. I often default to the carrot cake recipe from their first book for family birthdays, however I fancied making something different and a bit smaller on this occasion.

After flicking through my recipe books I landed on a carrot cake from The Great British Book of Baking, the baking book which accompanied the very first series of The Great British Bake Off. It's a lovely book yet somehow I've baked very little from it over the years. The recipes and accompanying pictures make me feel nostalgic for the early series which were very much centred around traditional (dare I say old fashioned?) wholesome home baking. 

I love orange in a carrot cake. It gives it such a sunshine-y, fresh lift in flavour which feels appropriate for a Spring birthday. I also think orange zest makes the best addition to cream cheese icing (which also attracted me to this recipe.) For the last few years I've found it difficult to make a cream cheese icing without it.

It was only when I was typing up the recipe for the blog that I discovered that I had added the zest of a whole orange when I was only meant to add half to the sponge mix. Oops! Luckily we're both big fans of orange flavour.

My only criticism regarding the cake was that I found it a touch too heavy/wet in texture, but my eaters thought I was being overly picky. I don't think this recipe will replace my love for the Hummingbird Bakery's carrot cake but it was fun to try something different and dip into a baking book I haven't used in a long time.

Carrot and orange cake

Recipe very mildly adapted (because I dislike nutmeg and misread orange quantities) from The Great British Book of Baking 

Sponges:

225g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder 

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp ground mixed spice

225g soft light brown muscovado sugar

Zest of an orange (or half, if you read the recipe accurately. . . )

100g chopped walnut pieces

3 medium size eggs

150ml sunflower oil

250g grated carrots (Squeeze out excess moisture if they feel really wet.)

Icing:

200g full fat cream cheese

50g softened butter (I use slightly salted)

150g icing sugar

Zest of 1/2 an orange 

2 tsp orange juice

Preheat the oven to 180C/ fan 160C/ 350F/ Gas 4. Grease two 20cm/ 8" round cake tins and line the bases with baking parchment. 

Combine the flour, baking powder and spices in a large bowl. Next mix in the sugar, orange zest and nuts followed by the eggs, oil and carrots. Mix everything together until well incorporated then divide equally between the prepared cake tins.

Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for approx. 25 minutes, until risen, firm to touch and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Turn the cakes out of their tins and leave to fully cool on wire cooling racks.

For the icing, mix together the icing sugar, orange zest and butter until smooth before adding the cream cheese and mixing until well incorporated and smooth. 

Divide the icing between the two sponges and stack as a sandwich (layer) cake. Decorate with more orange zest or walnuts if desired.