I've never made carrot cake before, which is crazy because I love carrot cake! So I decided I would make one for my birthday, which is still ages away but I thought I should do some recipe testing before hand. I had envisioned working my way through several recipes giving marks out of ten etc. But I think I'm in love with this one! I cannot stop thinking about it. I want more! It is moist and tasty and the icing is light and fluffy.
The Cake
I followed the recipe from Lorraine Pascale's Baking Made Easy although I didn't want a big cake, so I reduced the quantities by two thirds to just make one of the three layers she has pictured. Which was a perfect amount. These are the quantities I used:
175ml vegetable oil
3 eggs
175g soft dark brown sugar
140g carrots peeled and grated
grated zest of one orange
175g self raising flour
pinch of salt
1 tsp bicarb of soda
1tsp mixed spice
1/2tsp vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 180°C - I had my fan assisted oven on at 165°. Prepare a 23cm/9in round tin by oiling the insides and lining the bases with baking paper.
Put the oil, sugar, carrots and orange zest in a large bowl and mix with a wooden spoon.
Mix the flour, salt, bicarb of soda and mixed spice together then sift into the bowl.
Add the vanilla and lightly mix everything together until the mixture is uniform but still soft and runny. Pour it into the tin and bake for about 40-45 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Leave it to cool for 5 minutes then turn it out onto a wire rack and peel off the paper.
The Icing
I basically followed the recipe for cream cheese buttercream in Karen Sullivan's Step by step cake decorating book. Again I changed the quantities for my own purposes.
65g unsalted butter, softened
1/2tsp vanilla extract
200g icing sugar
90g cream cheese
Cream the butter and vanilla together with an electric whisk. Add half of the icing sugar, beat well, then add the other half and beat it again.
Add the cream cheese, a little at a time, beating vigorously until fluffy.
The spread it over the cake and enjoy!
If you tried the carrot cake, let me know what you think. Leave a comment below.
Also, I'm always looking for new ideas for baking/cooking, if you have any suggestions, leave a comment!
I wasn't going to bake any more cakes until at least May after making Elizabeth's Birthday Cake. However I made an exception for these Valentine's Day cake pops because they're not really cakes, they're cake pops! Plus I've never tried them before so it was a challenge.
Shopping!
I bought some cake pop moulds from Tesco. They were on sale at £1.50. Pretty good as I've seen them for about £7 elsewhere.
I bought red candy melts from hobbycraft. And I also got lolly pop sticks from hobbycraft and a stand for holding the pops while they set, although I've seen people using polystyrene for this.
I watched a few videos: Nerdy Nummies
And Megs Goodies
And I also got some help from a brilliant Step by Step Cake Decorating book I got for Christmas by Karen Sullivan.
I used the chocolate cake recipe from the book. It said that making cake pops was an excellent way of using up leftover cake. LEFTOVER CAKE? WHO HAS LEFTOVER CAKE JUST LYING AROUND!!!
It also said to use 300g of *leftover* cake. And I had no idea how much cake would be 300g. I took a chance and halved the recipe and it weighed 312g when cooked. Perfect!
Chocolate Cake:
87g unsalted, softened butter
87g soft light brown sugar
1 large egg and the yolk of another
62g self raising flour
25g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp greek yoghurt
Method:
Cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the egg(s) and mix again.
Fold in the dry ingredients.
Lastly add the yoghurt.
Bake it in a greased 7 inch cake tin at 180 degrees for 25 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
Chocolate Buttercream Icing:
62g unsalted, softened butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
150g icing sugar
1/2 tbsp milk
2 tbsp cocoa powder
Method:
Cream together the butter and vanilla extract. Add the icing sugar and cocoa powder, mix again. Add the milk and beat until the icing is light and fluffy.
Making Cake Pops - I made 18 cake pops
When the cake is cool, break it up into crumbs and mix it with 150g of buttercream icing until you have a smooth dough. Now you can hand mould it into balls or use silicon moulds. Using the moulds was time consuming for me because there were only 5 hearts in the mat, so I could only do 5 at a time.
Once I had filled my 5 moulds I put them in the freezer for 30 minutes. Then I popped them out and smoothed out the edges, then I put them in the fridge while the next batch were being prepared.
Next up you dip one end of a cake-pop stick into "chocolate" and insert it into the center of each pop. Leave it for about 30 minutes to set.
I used some Lindt white chocolate for this. When it melted it was really runny and it did not hold the cake pops onto the stick well enough. So when it came to covering the pops quite a few fell off and we ended up with some very messy (but tasty) pops. I suggest using some of the candy melts instead because that stuff is like cement!
Then dip the pops into the melted candy melts and swirl to cover.
When I melted the candy melts the mixture was really quite thick, so I added some water and mixed it thoroughly. Then I put the mixture back into the microwave for 10 seconds throughout the decorating process, in order to keep it quite runny. But this step would have generally been easier if the cakes were more firmly stuck to the sticks.
And add some sprinkles to finish off.
These were really, really yummy. The girls loved them and ate 3 each last night! I bought little bags and ties from hobbycraft and the girls gave them as gifts to their friends. I will definitely experiment more with cake pops now that I've tried them. Nom, nom, nom!
If you tried the cake pops, let me know what you think. Leave a comment below.
Also, I'm always looking for new ideas for baking/cooking, if you have any suggestions, leave a comment!
