19 October, 2010

Carrot cake for a farewell

Szilvi has left us. Not forever, thank God,  but only for the time being. She is going to have a new life, different from the one that she got used to in the office. She is going to be a mum and I have no doubt that she will enjoy this just as much as (or hopefully even more) than working with us for years.
I asked her what she would like to get from me as "leaving" present and she wanted to get a carrot cake. Unfortunately, I won't be able to publish a picture of the cake as I don't have the facility of taking photos in the office but I hope that everyone can imagine the cake (who has not seen that), which is full of goodies such as carrots, orange zest and wholegrain stuff.

Cake (for a 23 cm diameter cake tin) Prep. 15 mins, baking 45 mins.

250 g margarine/butter
250g brown sugar
 1 orange's zest and freshly squeezed juice
4 eggs
300 g carrot (peeled and grated)
150 g grated walnut
1 tbs vanilla sugar
250 g flour (mixture of wholegrain and plain flour)
2 tsb bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp all spices
1 tsp salt

Frosting:
200g room temp. Philly cream cheese
50 g room temp. butter
300 g icing sugar
1/2 lemon's freshly squeezed juice

Turn on the oven to 190-200 degree Celsius.
Peel and grate the carrot. Mix the butter with the sugar (both brown and vanilla), until it is pale yellowish (or actually brownish from the sugar). Add the egg one by one to the mixture and keep whisking. Add the orange zest and juice, keep on whisking. Add the grated carrot, the walnut the flour and the spices etc. (called dry ingredients) fold in carefully.
Butter and flour the bottom of the cake tin and put a grease-proof paper in that (tailored to fit). Pour the mixture in the prep. cake tin and bake in the oven for 45 minutes. When checking if the the cake is ready then poke a toothpick in the middle and if it comes out clean then your cake is ready. Let the cake cool.

For the frosting, I made a mistake that I mixed melted butter with fridge cold cream cheese-- Don't do it--.
So sieve the icing sugar, add the lemon juice, start mixing. Add the room temp. cream cheese and the butter. Let it cool down in the fridge and then use it as you wish-. It can be only frosting or filling as well. Main thing is that you let the frosting dry on the cake on room temperature! Enjoy.

Next time I will try to post a photo.

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