Top 8 carrot cakes
Could it be any better for us, than say chocolate cake?
While calorie counting is not the ideal way to measure our food consumption, it does give us a clear picture of what damage we are doing to our waistlines when we have treats.
Here are the facts: expect to clock up 400 calories for a large 100g slice of carrot cake — a fifth of an average woman’s daily calorie allowance. Sugars vary between 22% and 35% as the icing adds quite a bit compared to a simpler fruit cake.
On average, saturated fats come to around 3% of 18% overall fats, protein 3.8% to 4.4%, so for this survey it wasn’t worth differentiating the nutritional measurements of one brand from another.
What the numbers tell us is that this cake is no better than chocolate cake and has to sit in the occasional treat section of our menu. Nice for a picnic, perhaps, keeping it to finger-size portions.
There are plenty of easy recipes for carrot cake online, but, to limit the calories, it’s best to ease off on the topping, with just a scrape for flavour.
This survey was disappointing at the lower end of scores, while the top markers deserved every point.
Deliciously moist with luscious, large California raisins, chopped walnuts and juicy carrot throughout, it is topped a soft cream cheese with the tiniest amount of sugar and lemon juice which gives it a light, lively flavour and doesn’t overpower the cake. One taster thought the icing was too soft, but still gave it a high mark. Worth the price.
Available in Carrigaline, Crosshaven and English Market, Cork.
A deliciously tangy cream cheese topping, with the barest amount of sugar, tops the darkest of the samples. The butter has been browned to give a deep flavour to the crumb. It’s a substantial cake, but not heavy, with a decent amount of carrot for a lovely moistness. There are no walnuts, no spices, but they are not needed. Available in Diva Ballinspittle and Filter café, George’s Quay, Cork.
Finely grated carrot here with decent chunks of walnut provide a different, more spongy, light texture than other samples. The topping has a nice tang.
Also available are gluten-free, small individual cakes for €2.50. A substantial size for the price.
This is the only cake which has two layers, sandwiched together with the quite sweet, creamy icing, less cream cheesy, with more on top. The crumb is beautifully light and has a small amount of walnut throughout with less carrot than other cakes. Tasters liked the extra layer of creaminess and the natural texture. The flavour was of a decent, butter-based cake. Good value.
This is quite a spicy cake with a dry texture, despite its 11% carrot which isn’t noticeable enough to give this a decent bite. While vegetable oil is often used in homemade carrot cake, we would prefer not to see palm oil for sustainability reasons. A topping of cream cheese includes cream cheese powder, so the tang is not there and it’s more like a sweet icing. There are some walnut nibs which help. One taster liked it.
Lots of additives are what you get for this low price. Though the label says there is 5%, we found little sign of carrot here, or the benefits of the moistness we expect from it. There is little taste except sweetness and some dry spices, and the texture is not natural for what should be a cake mixture. From supermarkets.
With 13% carrot, the mixture has some moistness, but the overall taste and feel is not as natural as expected. Lots of additives, rapeseed and palm oil, but there are some spices and chopped walnuts, and the cream cheese icing is topped with oats. Overall the texture clings to the palate and was not liked much by tasters.
Available in Tesco and Centra.
Topped with cream cheese and chopped walnuts, the flour is replaced with rice and tapioca flours and potato starch. It has 19% carrot, but it’s not quite enough to dumb down the graininess of the rice flour. There is a mild spiciness which helps along with a good number of walnuts throughout.
Score: 6
