Today I have been a little bit of a perfectionist ... I decided that although good the carrot cake yesterday was good it was not perfect. I think some of the measurements got a little lost in translation from cups to grams.
So ... I spent the morning adapting the recipe and came up with the following ...
CARROT CAKE
Ingredients
240ml Sunflower oil, 300g Granulated sugar, 4 Eggs, 300g Plain flour, 1/2 Teaspoon of baking powder, 2 Teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda, 1/2 Teaspoon of Salt, 300g Grated carrot, 250g Drained tinned pineapple, 150g Walnuts, 2 Teaspoons vanilla extract, 2 Teaspoons of mixed spice
Cake Tins
2 x 2lb loaf tins
2 x 2lb loaf tin liners
- Heat the oven to 160
- Place one 2lb loaf tin liner in each of the 2lb loaf tins
- How you make the cake will now vary depending on whether you have a food processor
- FOOD PROCESSOR: Place the oil, sugar and eggs into the food processor and mix together until smooth. Add the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, vanilla, mixed spice and salt and mix again for a few seconds. Lastly add the carrots, pineapple to the processor and throughly mix together all the ingredients. This should take about 20-30 seconds. Once mixed add the nuts and blitz for 5-6 seconds, you want the nuts to have been chopped slightly but not turned into chopped nuts.
- BOWL: Mix the oil, sugar and eggs together, add the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, vanilla, mixed spice and salt beat again, add in the remaining ingredients to the mixture and beat well.
- Divide the mixture between the two cake tins and place in the oven for 40-45 minutes. When cooked the cake should be golden on the top and spring back when touched. To check it is cooked through slide a metal skewer into the middle of the cake, if it comes out clean the cake is cooked. If the skewer is covered in cake mixture it needs a few more minutes in the oven
- Once cooked remove the cake form the oven and leave it to cool slightly for a couple of minutes
- After a couple of minutes remove the cakes from their tins, keeping them in the liners and transfer to a wire rack to cool
- Once cold serve with a nice cup of tea ...
Cooking notes
If you use the bowl method make sure the nuts and pineapple are finely chopped and the carrot is finely grated or it will not be distributed evenly through the mixture. In addition mix the baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into the flour before you add the flour to the mixture, this ensures they are mixed evenly through the cake.
You use quite a lot of bicarb in this recipe as it is the leavening agent. The bicarb reacts with the acid in the pinapple causing carbon dioxide bubbles and the cake to rise.
You can get loaf tin liners at any good cake shop.
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