Carrot Cake at Foodies Festival Brighton

A huge thank you to everyone who braved the bracing sea air to visit Foodies Festival on Hove Lawns in Brighton on Saturday! I had the best time Burlesque Baking in the Tasting Theatre and whipping up a Carrot Cake with my darling John Whaite in the Chefs’ Theatre.

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As promised, I wanted to share the recipe for my Carrot Cake with you. The recipe is very similar to John’s own recipe that you can watch me baking with Lorraine on ITV (below), but being a greedy soul, mine is a little bigger!

The reason for this is that the fashion for cakes at present is for deep tiers. That is my excuse…

SPICED CARROT CAKE

350g Dark Brown Soft Sugar
300ml Sunflower Oil
4 Large Eggs
1 tsp Orange Extract
400g Self-Raising Flour
2 tbsp Mixed Spice
2 tsp Bicarb of Soda
400g Grated Carrot
200g Sultanas, Cranberries, or whatever dried fruit you have
100g Desiccated Coconut
100g Chopped Pecans, or whatever nuts you have

  1. Whisk the sugar, oil and eggs until combined. You will need to whisk until the sugar is all dissolved and this should take 3 minutes or so. Add the orange extract.
  2. Combine the flour, mixed spice and bicarb in a separate bowl and fold this into the wet ingredients.
  3. Add the carrot, sultanas, coconut, and pecans to the cake mixture and fold these through until all are well covered.
  4. Spoon the cake mix into two lined 8” sandwich tins and bake in a 170 oven for around 35 minutes. The cake is done when it has risen and springs back when pressed lightly. If you are unsure, a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should come out clean or with only a few crumbs on it.
  5. Leave the cakes to cool on a cooling rack in their tins for 10 minutes before turning them out to cool completely.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

125g Unsalted Butter
125g Cream Cheese
350g Icing Sugar

  1. Cream the butter in a freestanding mixer for 2-3 minutes until soft
  2. Add half of the icing sugar and mix until combined, then add half of the cream cheese and mix again
  3. Repeat this until all of the ingredients are thoroughly combined and the frosting is light and creamy

Use this frosting to sandwich your two layers of Carrot Cake together. You will also have sufficient frosting to cover the top and sides of the cake too if you like!

As ever, if you would like any more of my recipes and cake decorating tricks, my latest book Deliciously Decorated is bursting with both!

For an extra decorative touch, you could make little carrots from sugarpaste…

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