Saturday's carrot cake

My intention had sort of been to make Christmas cakes / Christmas puddings today. Enough of an intention that I had got as far as calling my mum to ask for recipes. She agreed to email me. But I didn't have enough of an intention to purchase a slow cooker for the puddings, especially when it transpires that mum has two spare ones (who needs two spare slow cookers?) and I'm going to see her in a few weeks so can acquire one of these then. And it appears that I am a little premature for Christmas cake (up to 4 weeks in advance the recipe says). So it was off with the Christmas baking and on with the carrot cake.

I have often thought about making a carrot cake, ever since Matt, my husband, bought me a food processor a couple of years ago. You may wonder why the advent of a food processor would mean that I would think about making carrot cake. Well, one of the things that has always put me off before is the amount of manual carrot grating that I had envisaged. Since getting the food processor the thing that has been putting me off making carrot cake is my mum. Her carrot cake is so good that I really think I don't stand a chance of living up to it and all who eat it (who have previously tasted hers) will be disappointed. I have however made a number of successful batches of carrot muffins and was feeling confident enough now to extend my skills to a full on cake.

I've had mum's carrot cake recipe written on a scrap of paper since my university days but decided that rather than a direct comparison I'd try something different. So I selected a different recipe from my box. As well as carrots this also featured sultanas (also in mum's) and coconut which I thought sounded nice. In the end it turns out that for the required 175g of grated carrot you only need 2 carrots – so maybe I could have managed the manual grating after all. It was a pleasingly simple recipe: beat together 75ml sunflower oil and 100g dark brown soft sugar (I used light brown as this was all there was in the cupboard). Then beat in 2 eggs, then stir in everything else.

Unable to resist I decided to add a few more ingredients – as well as the carrot, 100g self-raising flour, cinnamon and nutmeg, 50g sultanas and 50g desiccated coconut, I also added 50g chopped dried apple (I've had carrot and apple soup before which was very nice). I tried to chop the apple in the food processor but it was having none of it (maybe I was using the wrong attachment) so had to chop manually. Then I got a bit worried that there wouldn't be enough moisture to deal with all the dry ingredients so I added a tablespoon of ginger syrup (I've been looking for a use for this since I used the balls of stem ginger in a big gingerbread).

Then you just pour it into a “prepared” 18cm square tin and bake at 180ºC for about half an hour (maybe just under – keep an eye on it). One thing that I have never got the hang of (to be honest I haven't ever really tried very hard) is lining cake tins. With square tins it isn't too bad though – I just stick a bit of greaseproof paper in it and poke a bit at the corners. The worst that happens is slightly untidy corners. I think that before I make Christmas cake(s) using lots of (relatively) expensive ingredients I should try to learn how to line the tins properly. Perhaps mum will have some tips.

In terms of icing I take after my mum i.e. we'd rather not. I was positively amazed that she had full on decorated a cake for my 30^th birthday. So something I could do to increase my chances of a good carrot cake taste comparison would be to ice this one. In general I don't really like the taste or texture of icing but I do like the cream cheese one traditional with carrot cake. In the absence of any oranges in our house, or in the local shop, I made do with the zest of a couple of clementines. Despite assiduously (wow, that word just came to me, I hope it's the one I'm after) sticking to the recipe (apart from the clementine substitution) the icing seemed to be quite runny but it tasted really nice (it would have been remiss not to test it) and I was loath to change the taste with the addition of more icing sugar. Once the cake had fully cooled I transferred it to my chosen tin (one that had previously contained biscuits celebrating a rather big wedding from last year) and spooned over the icing. The trick is to put the cake on the lid of the tin then you don't have to do any manoeuvring to ice or serve it. The icing did pour over the sides quite a bit but I wasn't too bothered, I just cleaned it up with my little finger.

We resisted until after our curry to try the cake out. And I must say I wasn't disappointed. Matt described it as having a good cakiness about it. I was particularly pleased by the apple which I think gave it a satisfying tanginess. Must try it out on my mum.