Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Carrot Cake

Recipe taken from Mich Turner's Spectacular Cakes
Makes 1 6" round or square pan

25ml dark rum
100g sultanas
175g plain flour
2tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp ground nutmeg
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
150ml sunflower oil (I use canola oil)
75g golden caster sugar (I use white fine sugar)
75g light brown sugar
2 medium eggs, beaten
Zest of 1 lemon
Zest of 1 orange
175g carrots, peeled and grated (I use about 80g of grated carrots and found it just nice for a cake this size)
55g dessicated coconut
55g chopped walnuts
1tsp vanilla extract (I omitted this because I reckon the cinnamon and nutmeg would overpower the vanilla anyway)
1tsp glace ginger (optional)

For syrup:
75g light brown sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 orange


1. Pour rum over sultanas and infuse for 1 hour.

2. Preheat oven to 150 degree celsius (140 degrees celsius for fan-forced).

3. Have all ingredients prepared at room temperature. Grease and line cake tin.

4. Sieve flour together with ground cinnamon, nutmeg and bicarbonate of soda.

5. Beat together the sunflower oil, both sugars and eggs until smooth.

6. Stir the flour mixture into the smooth batter. Add lemon zest, orange zest, carrots, dessicated coconut, walnuts, sultanas, vanilla extract and chopped glace ginger, and stir well to combine.

7. Spoon mixture into prepared tin and bake for 1 hour 30min or until skewer comes out clean. (I suggest checking the cake at 45min. Mine was done at about 50 minutes)

8. While the cake is baking, prepare the syrup. Place the sugar in a jug and add the sieved orange and lemon juices. Stir well.

9. Once the cake is baked, remove from oven and immediately pierce it with a skewer several times. Carefully spoon or pour over the citrus syrup then leave the cake to cool before removing from the tin. (I pour about 2/3 of the syrup and found it sufficiently moist. You can pour all if you want yours to be more moist)

Optional: You can spread a layer of cream cheese frosting if you like.

Read my blog post here



7 comments:

Anonymous said...

In the copy of the book I have Mich Turner uses Rum & Raisins and the cake tastes much better than with the sultanas. I have made it so many times as it is always a huge hit.

Anonymous said...

I also have few of Mich Turner's books and in them sais Rum& Sultanas. Made the cake many times and it's always a hit!

ANGELA ELIZALDE MARTIN said...

Are you sure that this recipe is for a 6" tin baked at 150C? I have been baking my trial cake for over 1 hr 15 min and it is still very wet in the middle!!! I would like to use it for the middle tier of my son's wedding cake if it works out but now I feel very insecure!

Bimmer said...

Angela,
yes, this is the correct information taken from the original recipe.
But I usually bake my cakes at about 170-180 degrees, which was why I did not need 1h30min as indicated in the book.
Perhaps you can try a higher temperature too, hope it works for you.

Bimmer said...

Angela,
or you could bake them in 2 identical pans instead of 1. That will speed up the baking too.

Anonymous said...

i baked this at 150 centigrade and it took just over 1 and a half hours in a 6inch deep 3inch high tin and was brilliant.All ovens vary but i find cooking at celcius instead of fan and on a low temperature cooks the cake through better

Bimmer said...

Hi Anonymous,
150 degrees felt like too low for me, and it did not seem to look like it was going to cook. Next time I will try 150 degrees and be patient! Thanks for letting me know!

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