Carrot cake

Carrot cake or just another term for a cake that it is supposed to be healthier than a regular cake. Something like a banana bread that has it's share of butter and sugar...the lot, but people seem to think it is healthy because it has a few bananas inside. Talking about banana bread i have a recipe for a very nice banana bread on the website.

In the carrot cake that I made today there are only two eggs and it has oil instead of butter so I guess it is a bit healthier especially if you do not add the frosting..

This cake came into the picture when Robert asked me to teach him make a simple cake so I chose this because it is super easy to make, takes two bowls and a spoon and no mixer is needed. So I thought it was great for someone who is now just starting to bake. So... it is ideal for students and also ideal for you to make with your kids or your significant other.

Also as carrot is not an ingredient that has any particularly strong taste you can add any sort of spices that you fancy. So apart from the cinnamon that people use when making this cake I added ginger to give it a kick and also tumeric that gives the cake a more "carroty" colour and it is also great for your body and especially for your guts.

The cake on it's own came out beautifully and moist and aromatic and keeps very well but for the picture I wanted to take it a step further so I decided to frost it and make it stunning looking apart from stunning tasting.

So I decided to glaze it with a simple glaze but using a crazy elixir called Alkermes that my friend Damianos gave me. This elixir has a beautiful red colour so with the help of some lemon juice it took a beautiful pink-orangy hue.
Also decided to make some crystalized carrot slices and also used some tiny verbena leaves and the seeds from a pepper tree that we have in the garden... But you can omit all that and just have the cake that it is great on it's own!

So give it a try and here is a list of what you will need!

Diffuculty: 1 of 3

Duration:25 minutes prep and 40 minutes cooking

Serves:10

Ingredients

For the cake

400 g carrots

150 g vegetable oil

250 g brown sugar

4 medium eggs

250 g all purpose flour

3/4 tsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp. baking soda

3/4 tsp. cinammon

3/4 tsp. dried ginger powder

3/4 tsp. tumeric powder

50 g chopped walnuts

For the frosting

100 g icing sugar

1tblsp. Alkermes

A few drops of lemon juice

a tad of water

For the crystallized carrots

a few carrot slices

100 g of water

100 g of caster sugar and more if we like

Method

For the cake

We peel, clean and grade the carrots.
Place them in a kitchen towel and remove the excess water by twisting the towel and press it against the kitchen sink.

Transfer the carrot in a bowl and add the oil, sugar and after we mix those ingredients well using a spoon, we add the eggs and mix those in as well.

Preheat the oven at 160C forced fan.

In another bowl we add the flower and the rest of the cake ingredients and mix them together.
We transfer the mixture in the other bowl with the carrots and fold everything together without overmixing.

Empty the bowl in a loaf non stick tin 28X10 cm. If our tin is not non stick we line the bottom and sides with some parchment paper.

Bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer that we put in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Let the cake cool down in the tin for 10 minutes and then we remove it from the ton and let cool down completely on a rack.

For the frosting.

We mix the sugar with the Alkermes and the lemon juice.

We add a little bit of water at a time (by tsp.) if the glaze is too thick and mix it up till we come to the right consistency.

For the crystallized carrots

Add the water and sugar in a small pan and we bring to a boil till the sugar dissolves completely.

Add the carrot slices in the pan and boil till they are tender.

We let them dry on kitchen paper and we toss them with some caster sugar if we like.

We dress the cake with the glaze and carrots..

Με το γλασο και τα καρότα στολίζουμε το κέικ

Carrot cake

Ingredients

Method

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