Carrot Cake (Day 4 – BM#4)

This is the fourth day of the Blogging Marathon, so we are halfway through. I am already feeling great about having done this as I have come back to regular blogging and also writing about baking, which I am very fond of. Also my cakes are getting a chance to see the light of the day and that is very good.

Today’s cake is a classic recipe and one that I  had not tried for a long time because I thought that it would be a weird combination having carrots in a cake. Yes, although this cake is an internationally accepted classic, I wasnt convinced about the combination. I only recently started making this and the first  time was because I had run out of options for a simple cake and had lots of carrots in the fridge!

It turned out to be very good and made me realise why its counted amongst the classic ones. You can make it as a simple cake, top with cream cheese frosting or like in this case, cover it with glaze icing.

Carrot Cake

 

Makes one 8” square cake

Ingredients

For the cake

• 1.25 cups Plain Flour
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2/3 cup Soft brown sugar
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 100 ml Sunflower oil
• 1/2 cup Carrot, finely grated
• 2 tblsp Chopped walnuts
• a pinch of salt
• Butter for greasing

For the glace icing

• 1/2 – 1 cup Icing Sugar
• 1-2 tblsp Water (or lemon juice)

Method: Pre heat the oven to 180 deg C. Grease an 8” swuare cake pan. Sprinkle some plain flour and then tap the pan to get rid of the excess flour so that there is a coating on the pan too. This will help to prevent the cake sticking to the pan once it is baked. Alternatively grease and line the tin with baking paper.

Sift the flour, salt and cinnamon into a bowl. Add the brown sugar and stir to mix.

Add the eggs and oil and mix. Stir in the carrots and chopped walnuts. Pour this mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the pre heated oven for about 20-25 minutes. Check if the cake is completely cooked and once done, leave it in the pan to cool for 5 minutes. Remove to a wire rack.

To make the glace icing, sift the icing sugar and add the water drop by drop, stirring in between. Stop adding water once the desired consistency is reached. You can make it quite thick so as to spread the cake or a runny one to lightly coat the cake.

Pour the icing over the cake and let the excess icing fall down over the sides. Cut into bars and serve.

My Notes: The cake tastes great just on its own and the glace icing adds that extra sweetness to it. I would recommend using the lemon juice for the icing instread of plain water. Also this cake can serve as a base for an elaborate cake with buttercream icing.

The addition of water (or lemon juice) to the icing sugar has to be done very carefully as a just one or two drops go a long way in this case. Once you add a few drops, stop adding water and mix it well and give it sometime to reach its actual consistency and then decide if you need any more water. As you can see from the picture above, my icing was quite runny and I would have preferred a slightly thicker one.

Also, dont leave out the chopped walnuts, they are very good to bite in every now & then.

 

Check out what the other Blogging Marathoners are doing (BM#4 hosted by Srivalli)

Diabetes Diet/Management: PJ

Kid Friendly Recipes: Suma, Priya Suresh, Divya

Seven Days of Soup:Ila, Smita P

Seven Days of Indian Bread: Monika,

30 Minutes Meals: Archana

Seven days of Condiment: Kamalika, Srivalli