Saturday, August 18, 2012

Carrot Cake, Country Show Style




Carrot cake is always a popular choice, and there are many different ways to make it.  When one of the sales team at work challenged me to make carrot cake, I had plenty of recipe choices.  Ultimately, I chose a recipe by 80+ year old Heather Henry from The Country Show Cookbook.  The attraction of this recipe is that it contains glace ginger - yum!

I was pleased with the resulting cake, which comprises a single layer loaf cake iced with cream cheese frosting.  Here's a peek inside:




Have I piqued your interest to make this cake?  If so, you will need:

Cake:

1 cup self raising flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups grated carrot
1/2 cup sultanas (I used raisins)
1/2 cup chopped glace ginger
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2/3 cup vegetable oil (I used canola oil, recipe used sunflower oil)

Frosting:

115g cream cheese
225g icing sugar
(Recipe also added 28g butter and 1 teaspoon vanilla to the icing - I skipped them)
walnuts to decorate

Preheat your oven to 160 degrees Celsius.  Grease a 15cm x 25cm loaf tin, then line the base with baking paper and grease the baking paper.

Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon into the bowl of an electric mixer, then mix in the sugar, carrot, sultanas, ginger and walnuts by hand.    

In a small jug, whisk together the eggs and the oil, then pour into the flour mixture and beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for 5 minutes.  (I did this by hand for a shorter period of time, and everything turned out fine.)

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 55 minutes or until cooked through.  Remove the cake from the oven and cool it in the tin for 10 minutes for turning it out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Once the cake is cool, mix the icing ingredients together in a small bowl, then spread the icing over the top of the cake with a metal spatula.  Decorate the top of the cake with walnuts.

Eat!


14 comments:

Kayte said...

Wow...nothing says cake around here like carrot cake...it is the show stopper with the guys as they don't really like cake all that much but they LOVE carrot cake. Yours looks beautiful, inside and out!

Kathy said...

Carrot cake is my all time favorite cake!! Yours looks so beautiful, moist and delicious!! Lovely!!

sanya said...

I love carrot cake!
This looks delicious!

Anonymous said...

Even though I skipped the ffwD carrot salad, I can never pass up a good carrot cake!

Kari said...

This looks really lovely - that photo of the inside is fantastic and the cake looks so moist. I adore carrot cake and a good one is really so very, very good!

cakewhiz said...

carrot cake is one of my favorites, right after chocolate cake though...lol

your carrot cake recipe is so different than mine. i don't use ginger or raisins but i may add them next time coz i think it will spice up the flavor of my cake!

Chocolate Shavings said...

I love carrot cake and this reminds that I haven't made it in far too long!

Johanna GGG said...

I love carrot cake with cream cheese frosting - glace ginger sounds delicious - and the book sounds intriguing too

Unknown said...

Your carrot cake looks so good, wish I had a piece for breakfast this morning, I'm with you on the addition of ginger, just love it!

The Squishy Monster said...

This looks really moist and delicious!!

The Caked Crusader said...

Carrot cake never disappoint and yours looks great

kyleen said...

I love how your carrot cake is so moist and studded with ginger and walnuts. It looks delicious.

Mary Hirsch said...

I may have given your yummy carrot salad short shrift because I wanted to get to your carrot cake. I read it with interest and then had to google to see what glace ginger (candied ginger) and sultanas (light raisins)were. I just never had heard those terms. I love carrot cake and your pique my interest because it was one layer. I wish I had a piece right now. Did you colleague like it?

Choc Chip Uru @ Go Bake Yourself said...

That is some delicious carrot loving my friend, my style :D

Cheers
Choc Chip Uru