Michelle Darmody: How to make the classic carrot cake
Pic: iStock
The first carrot cake recipe can be traced back to the 1800s.
It appeared in a French cookbook and was then translated into English a number of years later.
Its popularity rose in the 1940s during rationing when carrots were used to bulk up sweet bakes.
Spices, nuts and dried fruit have all been added over the years to make it the popular cake it is today.
Orange and carrot bring out the best in each other. By adding orange zest and juice to a carrot cake you not only let the carrots shine, but you also add a nice balance to the ground ginger and cinnamon.
I use the second largest setting on my box grater to grate the carrot. It can take a bit of time to hand grate, so you may perfect to use a food processor if you have one.
The more finely you grate, the more evenly the pieces distribute throughout the cake, and the more evenly the cake and the carrots will bake - yet I feel it is nice to have texture and too fine a grate will not have the same bite to it.
This recipe makes about 14 slices. Servings Preparation Time Cooking Time Total Time Course Ingredients 300g self-raising flour, sieved 2 tsp baking powder, sieved 85g of mixed chopped nuts 3 tsp ground cinnamon 3 tsp ground ginger 340g golden caster sugar 75g golden sultanas 340ml light olive oil 340g grated carrots 4 eggs 3 tsp vanilla For the icing: 400g cream cheese 4 tsp honey 2 tsp lemon juice and the zest of 1 lemon ½ tsp vanilla 90g icing sugar To decorate: handful walnuts or pecan nuts, roasted and finely chopped Method Preheat your oven to 180ºC/gas mark 4. Line two 9-inch round spring-form or loose-based tins with baking parchment. Mix all the dry ingredients together until combined. Add the olive oil and carrots and stir them in. Stir the vanilla into the lightly beaten eggs and slowly add these to the cake batter. Scoop half of the batter into each of your prepared tins. Smooth out the top and place them in the centre of your oven to bake for about 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. If the skewer does not come out clean put the cake back into the oven for intervals of 5 minutes. Allow the cakes to cool in their tins until cool enough to handle then transfer onto a wire rack to cool completely. To make the icing, place all of the ingredients into a mixer and whisk until smooth and increased in volume. Ice the top of one of the discs and sandwich the other disc on top. Ice this and sprinkle with some chopped nuts.Carrot Cake
If your cake is too dry it has most likely been overbaked. Adding too much dried fruit can dry out your cake too, because fruit absorbs moisture from the other ingredients.
Make sure to leave the cake cool completely before adding your icing. If it is even a little warm the cream cheese will start to melt into a gooey, sticky mess.
Do not over-mix the batter, as over-mixing flour will make the cake tough. Just mix the batter enough to combine the ingredients.
Use a nice light oil in your cake. A deep-coloured oil tends to have a stronger flavour. Oil is used in this recipe to help the cake stay moist. Butter at room temperature solidifies and provides a different texture; by using oil you should have a softer cake.
If you are trying to impress with your cake and want a nice clear layer of icing on the top you can add a thin layer first, then after this has settled and hardened a little – about half an hour - add a top layer. This first layer will seal in any crumbs and smooth out any indentation on the cake leaving your next layer nice and smooth.
It is best not to use a bag of pre-grated carrots for your cake, as these tend to have lost a lot of moisture while sitting on shop shelves. I generally use the second largest holes in a box grater. I like the texture and bite this gives the cake. All of the carrots should be grated, if you throw the ungrated tips of the carrots into the batter the larger pieces will be too crunchy in the cake. If you have a food processor this step can be done with the grating blades of your machine.
For a dairy-free option, serve your cake nude.
To make buns instead of a cake, I would recommend baking for 14-18 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of one of the buns comes out clean. I would also use half of the carrot cake recipe above which will make about 14 buns depending on the size of your paper cases
Instead of the 110g of nuts use raisins instead. S
oak the raisins in some warm rum for 15 minutes before adding them to the batter. Add two teaspoons of rum to the icing instead of the lemon juice. If you are doing this, I would omit the zest from the icing.
Replace 150g of grated carrot with 150g grated apple. Replace the mixed nuts with 110g of chopped pecan nuts.
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