Midnight Cake Baking Extravaganza

After a long day at work there's nothing better than a decadent slice of carrot cake. So, I rolled up my sleeves and decided to get baking, much to the amusement of both my flatmates. Pffft, the world needs to stop judging people who choose to indulge in carbs post 10pm.

Ideally, this cake would be double layered so feel free to double the ingredients, tier up, and splurge!

First, pre heat the oven to 170 degrees C.

Begin grating the carrots. Beware of grating your knuckles bloody - not fun.

Whisk the flower, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, salt, nutmeg together in a bowl and set aside.

Mix the eggs, sugar, oil, buttermilk, brown sugar and vanilla together in a large bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients until fully incorporated. Stir in the carrots and walnuts until evenly distributed. 

Pour the batter into an oiled pan and bake for 35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean (you know the drill!). 

Cool the cakes for 30 minutes.

In the meanwhile, make the icing by beating cream cheese and butter together until smooth (mine came out lumpy, need to invest in an electric beater!). Add vanilla extract and beat in sugar, until the icing has the flavour and consistency that you like. 

Keep the icing in the fridge for 20 minutes before coating all over your cake!

TAAAA-DAAAA! It's midnight and my cake is ready.

Ingredients


Cake:
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 extra large eggs
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup canola oil (or vegetable oil)
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
400 grams finely grated carrots
1 cup toasted and chopped walnuts 


Cream-cheese frosting:
200 grams softened cream cheese
1/2 stick softened unsalted butter
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 
1 1/2 cup confectioners sugar (to taste)

Cake of the Carrot Kind.

I’m on a quest to find the best carrot cake out there. If I have one mission in life, this is it. So far, I’ve particularly enjoyed the ones mentioned below but the search must go on...

The Lime Tree Cafe in Dubai Jumeirah. Gloriously moist and fresh. Looks beautiful too. It’s been a while since I’ve bitten into it this one (1.5 years) but it’s so darn good. I bought a whole cake for a friends birthday a few years ago and it had all kinds of alcoholic beverages and insects crawling over it by the next morning. Kind of broke my heart.

Cake Boutique in London. Mustache man bought me half of this cake for my birthday this year. I even ate it in bed, for breakfast the next morning. My only complaint here is that the icing gets too hard if left over night, but it’s AMAZING the day it's bought.

Last week at Brixton village (my favourite place in London at the moment, I’ll need to dedicate an entire post to it soon. The once derelict and dodgy end of Brixton is wriggling out of its caterpillar state and getting all butterfly on us) Sweet Tooth stall we tried the carrot cake which I thought tasted a little funky (no one else agreed with me so do have a try yourself). An impromptu fashion began on while we were stuffing our faces, I’ve attached some photos for no particular reason.