Recipe: Carrot cake

I was eagerly waiting for winter just to make a very rich and lusty recipe: the carrot cake! This cake is very popular in the United States and in the UK, where I tasted it and fell in love with it.

Little did I know at the time that this is a killer for your shape! 🙂 This cake is literally a calorie disaster: it contains a lot of vegetable oil (which might be healthier than butter, but it’s 100% fat anyway, thus more caloric), walnuts (which contain a high percentage of fats), and last but not least, a huge amount of sugar (let’s say it’s “average”, for an American cake).

Having said so, we all know that if something tastes good, it’s surely bad for you. And, let me tell you, this is the best-tasting cake ever!!! 😀

It’s got a dense texture, a sweet flavour with a delicate cinnamon after-taste and a delicious, ~~unreasonably~~ sweet cream cheese icing.

On a technical note, this cake is prepared used the so-called “two-stage” mixing method, since the batter is prepared by adding a big amount of liquid in two stages. Since these cakes contain a high ratio of sugar and liquid to flour, so they are also called “high-ratio cakes“.

This version of the cake is taken from my magic book “On Baking” and it features a classy decoration with white chocolate cutouts and dried carrot crisps. These last two elements, together with the cream cheese icing, are optional, but I strongly suggest you try them out! I’m addicted to dried carrot crisps now! 🙂

Carrot cake

Print recipe

Ingredients

Cake

190	Granulated sugar
145g	Cake flour
4g	Baking powder
3g	Baking soda
3g	Ground cinnamon
1 pinch	Salt
170g	Peanut or sunflower oil
2	Eggs
1 tablespoon	Vanilla extract
140g	Carrots (grated)
60g	Walnuts (chopped)
40g	Coconut (shredded)

Cream cheese icing

50g	Unsalted butter (softened)
200g	Cream cheese (softened)
1 tablespoon	Vanilla extract
240g	Powdered sugar (sifted)

Dried carrot crisps

2	Carrots
120g	Granulated sugar
240g	Water

Chocolate cutouts

100g	White chocolate

Directions

Dried carrot crisps

Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a saucepan. Reduce the heat to a very low simmer.

Peel the carrots and slice them longitudinally with the peeler. Simmer the carrots for 10 minutes in the syrup, then drain them. Finally place them in a single layer in an oven pan and let them dry out at 80°C for 90-120 minutes until crispy.

Cake

Blend the sugar, sifted cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and oil on low speed for 1 minute in th ebowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment

Increase the speed to medium then mix for 4 more minutes

Reduce the speed and gradually add the eggs and the vanilla.

Add the carrots, walnuts and coconut. Mix just until combined.

Flour and butter a 20cm cake pan then cover the bottom with a round of parchment paper.

Place the batter into the pan and bake at 190°C for 30-35 minutes

Cream cheese icing

Soften the butter with a spatula then incorporate the softened cream cheese

Add the powdered sugar little by little, scraping the bowl often

Assembling the cake

When the cake is completely cool, flip it (so that the flat side is at the top) and slice it into three equal layers with a serrated knife.

Coat the first layer with some cream cheese icing, using an offset spatula...

...then do the same for the second layer, and finally cover with the top.

Apply a thin coating of cream cheese icing to the top and sides of the cake. Refrigerate until firm, then apply a final coating of icing.

Chocolate cutouts (optional)

To make the chocolate cutouts, you need to temper the chocolat. To do this, melt the chocolate to 45° over a bain marie. Place the bowl in an ice bath (a bowl filled with water and ice) to make the chocolate temperature drop to 26° stirring continuously. Finally place again the chocolate over the bain marie until the temperature of the chocolate reaches 30°.

Pour the tempered chocolate on parchment paper or a silicone mat then spread uniformly with a spatula

After 1 minute, use a chef knife (or a pizza wheel!) to draw a grid of squares into the chocolate layer. The chocolate will dry out in 3-5 minutes if correctly tempered and it will then be possible to separate all the chocolate cutouts

Decoration

Finally cover the sides of the cake with the chocolate cutouts and arrange the dried carrot crisps by sticking them slightly into the top of the cake.