Any of you that follow me on Twitter / Instagram will have seen that it was my birthday last month. When I moved to London and started my first job over here I found it very odd that on your birthday you are the one that brings in the cake to work. Very funny tradition I thought but ok! Although I work in a big and busy office I work on my own tucked away from everyone so last year I didn't tell anyone it was my birthday. On the day itself though word got out that it was my birthday and everyone was asking "Where's the cake??". I had only just started working in this job at the time so I just shrugged it off "What cake? Oh I was meant to bring in cake? I didn't know, I'm new to this country..!!" This year I obviously couldn't use that excuse having been in the UK for nearly 2 years now. I also have gotten to know everyone I work with better and vise versa so they all knew I loved to bake.. I had to bring in something I baked myself. I decided to do a chocolate cake and carrot cake. They went down a treat and when I mentioned the cakes I baked for my birthday on Facebook I was asked could I put up my carrot cake recipe up here so here it is.
I was going for dinner in a friends house on Saturday night so I thought it would be the perfect excuse to bake a cake. I try not to bake too much when I have nobody to give it to or somewhere to bring it as the temptation at home is just too much!! It went down very well and everyone loved it. There were two friends of mine who are coeliac at dinner so I made my cake gluten free but as I previously mentioned in my lemon slices post you can use either gluten free or regular self raising flour in this recipe. I used a cream cheese frosting with this recipe (my all time favourite frosting).
Ingredients
Cake
190g Self Raising Flour / Gluten Free Self Raising Flour
300g Caster Sugar
1.5 tsp Cinnamon
250mls Vegetable Oil
3 Eggs
250g Carrots (grated)
100g Chopped Walnuts
Cream Cheese Frosting
75g Unsalted Butter (at room temperature)
450g Icing Sugar (sifted)
180g Cream Cheese (Philadelphia- Full fat- From fridge)
1 tsp vanilla extract
Prepare
Pre-heat your oven to 180C or 170C Fan assisted oven. Grease and line two 8" round sandwich cake tins.
Method
In a large mixing bowl mix your flour (sifted), sugar and cinnamon. Add your oil and eggs to your dry ingredients. Stir until well combined. I just used a hand held whisk. These ingredients mix very easily. Once well incorporated stir in your carrots and walnuts. Divide your mixture between the two prepared baking tins and place in your preheated oven for 30-35 minutes or until a skewer placed into the middle comes out clean. You should also be able to press down the top of the cake and have it bounce back. Leave to cool in their tins on a wire rack and prepare your icing.
For your icing mix your butter and icing sugar with a hand held electric whisk or in a free standing mixer with paddle attachment on a low speed to begin with (unless you want a face full of dust) and slowly increase to medium speed. Once well combined add your philadelphia and vanilla extract in one and turn up speed to medium-high and leave to mix for about 5 minutes. Frosting will be light and fluffy. Be careful not to over mix as it can become runny quite quickly. Fill and ice your cake covering the top and sides if required. As you can see in the first picture above I decorated the carrot cake on my birthday with walnuts but for this one I left it plain. Decoration is optional!
As you can see there was nothing left on the plates.. this cake is an all round winner. Let me know if you try it out and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask me. You can find me on twitter, facebook and instagram and I love to hear from you when you try out my recipes so feel free to contact me via any of those links or comment below. Requests for recipes are always welcome- I love a challenge!
Happy Baking,
O x
Ingredients
Cake
190g Self Raising Flour / Gluten Free Self Raising Flour
300g Caster Sugar
1.5 tsp Cinnamon
250mls Vegetable Oil
3 Eggs
250g Carrots (grated)
100g Chopped Walnuts
Cream Cheese Frosting
75g Unsalted Butter (at room temperature)
450g Icing Sugar (sifted)
180g Cream Cheese (Philadelphia- Full fat- From fridge)
1 tsp vanilla extract
Prepare
Pre-heat your oven to 180C or 170C Fan assisted oven. Grease and line two 8" round sandwich cake tins.
Method
In a large mixing bowl mix your flour (sifted), sugar and cinnamon. Add your oil and eggs to your dry ingredients. Stir until well combined. I just used a hand held whisk. These ingredients mix very easily. Once well incorporated stir in your carrots and walnuts. Divide your mixture between the two prepared baking tins and place in your preheated oven for 30-35 minutes or until a skewer placed into the middle comes out clean. You should also be able to press down the top of the cake and have it bounce back. Leave to cool in their tins on a wire rack and prepare your icing.
For your icing mix your butter and icing sugar with a hand held electric whisk or in a free standing mixer with paddle attachment on a low speed to begin with (unless you want a face full of dust) and slowly increase to medium speed. Once well combined add your philadelphia and vanilla extract in one and turn up speed to medium-high and leave to mix for about 5 minutes. Frosting will be light and fluffy. Be careful not to over mix as it can become runny quite quickly. Fill and ice your cake covering the top and sides if required. As you can see in the first picture above I decorated the carrot cake on my birthday with walnuts but for this one I left it plain. Decoration is optional!
As you can see there was nothing left on the plates.. this cake is an all round winner. Let me know if you try it out and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask me. You can find me on twitter, facebook and instagram and I love to hear from you when you try out my recipes so feel free to contact me via any of those links or comment below. Requests for recipes are always welcome- I love a challenge!
Happy Baking,
O x
No comments:
Post a Comment