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The Clan Quest Advent Test Kitchen
Hoods, and Happy Holidays! Welcome to a very special edition of the Clan Quest Test Kitchen, where I've been sprung free from the pages of the Questaholic Magazine to bring you more recipes! Today I'll be teaching you to make Carrot Cake, and I can hear you already; "Dark, this is an Advent Calendar. How is Carrot Cake even remotely Christmas related?". Well, you'd be right, it's the not the first cake I'd imagine when someone mentions Christmas but you'd be surprised! More on that later.
The difficulty ranking of this recipe is a 2 out of 5 possible reindeer treats based on the baking aspect of this recipe, so this is a nice and tame recipe for less experienced bakers.
Ingredients
Cake Ingredients
- 250 Light Brown Sugar
- 250ml Sunflower/Vegetable Oil
- 3 large eggs
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 2 tsp Grated Orange Zest
- 1 tsp Mixed Spice
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- 250g Self-raising Flour
- 300g Grated Carrots
Optional ingredients;
- 100g Sultanas
- 75g Walnuts
Icing Ingredients
- 150g Cream Cheese
- 40g Butter
- 1 tbsp Orange Juice
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 500g Icing Sugar
Before we proceed, here are some thoughts I have about the icing ingredients/recipe above. While that was the recipe I used, would I 100% recommend it? Probably not, not without adjustments. I found the icing was too thin for my personal tastes, and was left with far too much of it. If the icing had been thicker perhaps some of that bulk would have been used up, and may have given a thicker layer of icing. So if I could give any advice, use 3/4s of the ingredient measurements, see if the icing needs thickening, and add more icing sugar to the mix. Alternatively, a good store bought cream cheese icing works wonders as well.
- Preheat the oven to 170°C/325 degrees Fahrenheit and pre-line your baking tins with baking parchment. This recipe requires two 20cm sandwich tins but I can honestly say I have no idea which sized tins I used bar "the standard size". Do as the recipe says, do not listen to bad influence Darkestnight! :D
- Let's talk carrots. You can buy pre-grated carrots from the store or you can grate your own. If you're grating it yourself make sure you're grating finely as we don't want hard chunks of carrot in the cake. I grated my own carrots and while the cake had the consistency I wanted, my hand felt like it was going to fall off afterwards. Do not be afraid to concede defeat and buy store bought!
So what does carrot actually add to a cake? Why do something so wacky? Historically speaking carrot has been used as a sugar alternative due to its natural sweetness and the high cost of sugar. The actual origins of the humble carrot cake are disputed, but other dishes utilising carrot in this way have been dated back as far as the 16th century.
- Mixed spice, what is that? Mixed spice is a blend of spices (No? Really?!) you can buy at most stores. It's a quick and easy alternative compared to buying all the other spices and mixing it yourself. But what if you either don't have access to Mixed Spice or/and have a glorious spice rack at home? Well if you want to make your own mixed spice blend there are plenty of decent recipes online, but the main ingredients are normally; Cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger, coriander, caraway, and cloves. Seems familiar this blend of spices, right? This is where I feel the Christmas element of this recipe comes into play since these are the flavours and smells I associate with the holidays.
- We're now adding the cake ingredients into a bowl, starting off with the dry ingredients and adding in the wet ingredients, but if you have a stand mixer then let it do all the work for you until you have a nice smooth batter consistency. There will be the occasional visible lump in the mixture but that's due to the grated carrot and you'll be able to tell that apart from other lumps.
- Pour the cake mix into your pre-lined tins, and give it a couple of hard slams on the kitchen counter to rid yourself of any air bubbles in the batter.
- Place your cake tins into the oven and cook for 20-25 minutes. Before turning off the heat be sure to check the cake in several areas with either a knife or a skewer to make sure it's cooked through. If it requires more time then return to the oven and periodically check the cake until a knife comes back clear. If you're worried about the top part of the sponge burning then loosely cover your tin with tin foil.
- After removing from the oven, allow your sponges to cool down before removing from the tins. Once sufficiently cooled, peel away the baking paper and transfer to a cooling rack to cool further. Your sponges may be more delicate due to the use of oil in the mixture (I find it makes the sponges softer and less dry), so be careful when removing them from their tins.
- Next, We're making our icing. Taking our ingredients we're mixing all of the ingredients together in one bowl, adding in more sugar as we mix to control the icing consistency. As I said above, you may wish to adjust the ratio of your icing ingredients. If you want to plan ahead making the icing a few hours before and letting chill in the fridge may help with the icing texture as well. Here's a reference for how thin the icing turned out when I made it;
- We are now at the decorating stage of our recipe. Decide which of your sponges you want to be the base, and put a dob of icing between the plate/cake board and the base sponge to help prevent the cake sliding around. Ice your sponges as you would normally and sandwich them together, adding cake dowels to your sponges if they sliding away from one another.
- Take some of your cream cheese icing and smother the top with it so it's covered. When it comes to decorating the top of your cake you have several options. You could leave it plain with just the icing, you could grate some more orange zest on top, hell you could even decorate with some walnuts. The world is your oyster. I chose to decorate my cake with some little carrots and a smidgen of orange zest.
- Pop the cake into the fridge to let the icing firm up, and ta-da! You've made a carrot cake! That wasn't so hard now was it? Carrot cake is a very beginner friendly cake and absolutely does not compromise on tastiness despite that.
What is a cake recipe without a good cross section eh? Here's how my cake turned out;
So there you have it, congratulations! I hope you've enjoyed making and eating this cake as much as I did (and let me tell you, the eating of the cake was one of the best parts). We've got some fantastic other entries lined up for this Advent Calendar and I'll hope you'll check them out, and perhaps consider donating to the charity campaign as we're raising money for a good cause.
In the meantime, settle down and enjoy a slice of cake, you've earned it! Unshood and see you next time!
Article by Darkestnight
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
This year we are raising money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. You can donate directly through our campaign page. If you want to show your appreciation to our streamers, make sure you donate during their streams, as they'll be keeping an eye on incoming donations and reading out donation messages! We also have goals and incentives to hit during the month of December, so keep an eye out for those as well.
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is leading the way the world understands, treats and cures childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. It is the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children. Treatments developed at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20 percent to 80 percent since the hospital opened more than 50 years ago. St. Jude freely shares the breakthroughs it makes, and every child saved at St. Jude means doctors and scientists worldwide can use that knowledge to save thousands more children. Families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing and food—because all a family should worry about is helping their child live.