Recipe Of The Month – Carrot Cake

Recipe Of The Month – Carrot Cake

As part of our swan blog series we have invited our very talented swan, Louise Arnold to share a recipe a month for you to enjoy! Outside of the nest, Louise has her own business, baking cakes and treats for weddings or private events. We’ve had the pleasure of trying some of her creations, and we can confirm, they are delicious!!

This months recipe is Carrot Cake and we’d love to see your versions of this, so feel free to tag us in your pictures on social media!

I recently started working with a couple whose wedding is later this year. Before deciding on the flavour choices, I always offer to make some taster cupcakes, so the couple are happy with the recipe I plan to use. Carrot cake was one of their favourites so I thought I would share my recipe with you. It’s super easy to make this gluten and/or dairy free and I am often asked for a dairy free version (as cream cheese frosting isn’t usually easy to find dairy free!) The cake itself is naturally dairy free as it uses oil instead of butter.

Ingredients

Cake:

• 300g light brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 300ml sunflower oil
• 300g plain flour
• 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1tsp baking powder
• 2tsp ground cinnamon
• 1tsp ground ginger
• 300g grated carrots
• 50g chopped walnuts (optional)
• 50g sultanas (optional)
• (if making gluten free, switch the 300g plain flour for gluten free plain flour and add in 1tsp Xanthan Gum)

Frosting:

• 600g Icing Sugar
• 100g butter
• 250g cream cheese
• (if making dairy free, switch the butter for baking block, and the cream cheese for a dairy free alternative)

Sugar carrots for decorating

3 x 20cm lined cake tins

Free standing mixer or hand mixer

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 170oC (150oC fan)

1. Put the sugar, eggs and oil into a free standing mixer (or use an electric handheld mixer) and beat until combined.
2. In a separate bowl add the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, cinnamon and ginger.
3. Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture a spoon at a time until well combined.
4. Add the carrots, walnuts and sultanas (if using) and stir in by hand to evenly distribute.
5. Pour the mixture into the three tins, trying to get similar amount in each tin.
6. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the top of the cakes spring back when touched and the cakes are a golden brown.
7. Take the cakes out of the oven and let them cool before turning out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

For the cream cheese frosting, in a clean bowl sift the icing sugar over the butter and mix in the free standing mixer or with electric handheld mixer until almost combined. Add all of the cream cheese in one go and beat until completely incorporated. Continue beating for around 3-5 minutes until the frosting is light and fluffy.

To assemble, take one cold cake and place onto a cake stand or board and spread a small amount of frosting on top (enough to cover the cake with about 0.5cm of frosting). Place the second cake on top and spread a small amount of frosting on top. Top with the final layer and spread the frosting over the sides and cake to create a crumb coat. Pop the cake in the fridge for about 15 minutes, and then spread the remaining frosting on top. This takes a little longer but it stop crumbs of cake appearing in the frosting leaving you with a nice clean look. I also like to leave a little frosting to put into a piping bag with a star nozzle.

To add the ridges (as shown in the picture), I use a palette knife and gently spin the cake on a cake decorating stand, using the palette knife to add a ridge, moving it up slowly so the ridges move up the cake. For the top, I again gently spin the cake and move the palette knife from the outside in to create a swirl. If you don’t have a spinning cake stand, you could use a palette knife to create vertical ridges around the sides. I then take the frosting I saved in a piping bag and add small rosettes around the top edge, and top with the sugar carrots.

To store, I’d suggest keeping in the fridge and getting out 15-30 minutes before serving.

Cake should be stored in the fridge and would last about 3 days.

Recipe by Louise Arnold

LABakes – @labakesnorwich

If you would like to give this recipe a try, we would love to see what you create! Please tag us in your posts on social media:

Instagram – @indigo_swan_norwich

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