Tuesday 10 July 2007

Eh, What's Up Doc?

Carrots! That's what.

Ethan's favourite veggies, but Edna absolutely won't touch them... unless they're hidden in yummy, moist, spicy, crunchy Carrot Cake!

Carrot Cake

Ingredients:
250ml vegetable oil

150g brown sugar
3 eggs
500g coarsely grated sweet carrot (sweet, as oppose to bland. I like to use the Aussie medium-size carrots found in NTUC supermarkets that are "brandless".)
120g coarsely chopped walnuts (I crush the walnuts individually because I like coarser bits in the cake.)
375g self raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp mixed spice

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

2. Grease a 9" x 9" pan and line with baking paper.
3. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and mixed spice together in a bowl.

4. Whisk eggs and sugar on MED till thick and creamy.

5. Fold in the oil lightly. Don't worry if the oil doesn't bind into the mixture at this stage - because it won't. Therefore, you don't need to stir the mixture too long.

6. Fold in the carrot and the walnuts. Again, don't worry if the carrot and walnuts don't get mixed evenly; the mixture still won't bind well until you...
7. Add in the dry ingredients. In this case, add in a few spoonfuls at a time, until the batter is more or less even.

8. Pour mixture into the pan and bake for about 1hr or till cooked. Test using skewer. If the top is browning too fast, cover it loosely with foil.

9. Stand cake in pan for 5 minutes before turning onto wire rack. Turn cake top-side up to cool.


Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:
30g butter
80g cream cheese
lemon zest from 1 lemon
120g icing sugar

Method:
1. Cream butter, cream cheese and lemon zest till light and fluffy.
2. Gradually add in the icing sugar.
3. Cream till smooth.

After the carrot cake is cooled, frost the cake with the Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting. Then sprinkle the with extra lemon zest and coarsely chopped walnuts.

Voilá! Carrots even non-carrot eaters would give a second look. heh.

ETA on 11 July 2007:
If you want to reduce the recipe, or just as a variation, a great way of making this cake is to make cupcakes! Just follow the above method and then fill up the cups 3/4 to the top.

Make sure you bake for only 40min!

You can decorate those cuppies with carrot slices shaped into carrots, like so:
A close-up look - that's a spring onion stalk! heh

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi brenda

barbs here...going to try to decorate the big cake with the mini carrot tops :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Brenda,

Just curious, are u using mixer to whisk eggs for this carrot cake?

Brenda said...

Yes, I did.

Anonymous said...

Hi brenda,

what is mixed spice ? is it cinamon? and where to get the vegatable oil? normal cooking oil?

Brenda said...

Mixed Spice can be easily bought from the supermarket, but it should not be confused with the Chinese 5-Spice powder. It's usually found together with other bottles of dried herbs and spices. Typically, Mixed Spice is made up of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg. However, I think substituting Cinnamon powder for Mixed Spice in this recipe is fine.

Vegetable oil is cooking oil. Avoid the heavier scented cooking oil like peanut oil or olive oil. Corn oil, canola oil or even soya bean oil is perfect for this recipe.

Anonymous said...

Whisk eggs and sugar on MED till thick and creamy, till thick and creamy not peak form right> any difference?

Brenda said...

The mixture will only be thick and creamy because it's both the egg yolk and egg white. It won't ever form peaks because of the yolks.

Anonymous said...

when u said add in dry ingredients means fold in or beat it?

Brenda said...

Fold or stir it in gently. You'll find that the mixture will firm up into a batter.

Anonymous said...

Hi,

Without the mixer, the dry ingredients can firm up in to a batter?

Brenda said...

The dry ingredients will absorb the moisture in the mixture and firm up. There's no need to use a mixer.

Anonymous said...

Hi Brenda,

DO you have plum cake recipe?

thanks

Brenda said...

Hi, no I haven't tried making a Plum cake. :D

Anonymous said...

Hi brenda,

Thanks for the lovely recipe. I tried to bake carrot cake during CNY. They all like it. :) but i somehow feel the cake not so soft and abit dry and hard.. what could be the reason?

Gong XI Fa Cai!

Brenda said...

I'm glad you enjoyed the recipe. If your cake turned out dryer than expected, perhaps it's overbaked. You might wish to reduce the time taken for baking the next time you try this recipe again.

Anonymous said...

Hi Brenda,
this is Angel from M4M. Thanks for sharing ur blog and get inspired.

I have a qn which I need ur advice. When u mention grease de pan and line de pan up with baking paper, do u mean u literally grease de pan with butter, then place de baking paper onto de greased cake tin?

When we say cake tin, is it de same as springform pan?

Thank u very much!

Brenda said...

Yes - grease the pan with veg oil or butter (but I use an oil spray to get a fine layer) and line the pan with baking paper.

You can use either the normal cake tin or a springform pan. The baking paper lining helps keep the cake batter in anyway. =)

jthorge said...

Hi Brenda,
I have tried this recipe and it turned out great. Thanks so much! *wink*

Tracey said...

Hi! Its me again! I've tried this and my coll really luv it. But can i use cake flour instead of self raising flour? Coz i wanna bake again but dun have SR flour now.Thanks!

Brenda said...

Hi Tracy,
If you don't have SR flour, here's simple and effective recipe for SR flour that you can use:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/self-rising-flour/detail.aspx