The Perfect Carrot Cake

I was looking at Carrot Cake recipes this morning amongst the books in my bookcase, then had a browse around online and finally decided to make this one as I really fancied the recipe, plus I had all the ingredients 🙂

The recipe is from the website http://www.cakebaker.co.uk and the link to the acutal recipe is here   http://www.cakebaker.co.uk/MakingThePerfectCarrotCake.html

The cake is in the oven as I type this and has about 45 mins left to bake, once its all done and dusted I’ll post a picture

The Perfect Carrot Cake

Ingredients for the cake

• 12½ oz carrots
• 2 oz pecans
• 4 oz self-raising wholemeal flour
• 4 oz plain wholemeal flour
• 2 teaspoons of cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 8 fl oz vegetable oil
• 6 oz soft brown sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 tablespoons golden syrup

Ingredients for the topping

• 7 oz cream cheese
• 2 oz softened unsalted butter
• 2 oz sifted icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essenceThese quantities make a 9” round cake / 1 x 2lb Loaf Tin

• Start off by grating 12½ oz carrots and chopping 2 oz pecans. Put to one side.
• Sieve together 4 oz self-raising flour and 4 oz plain flour (both wholemeal) with 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, ½ teaspoon nutmeg and 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda. (Tip the bran bits left in the sieve into the mixture.)
• Whisk together 8 fl oz vegetable oil, 6 oz soft brown sugar, 4 eggs and 2 tablespoons’ golden syrup. (Heat the spoon first and the syrup will slide off easily.)
• Add this to the dry ingredients and mix until it’s nice and smooth. Stir in the carrots and pecans.
• Tip the mixture into a greased lined tin and cook at 160oC for an hour, or until cooked.
• For the topping, mix 7 oz cream cheese, 2 oz softened unsalted butter, 2 oz sifted icing sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla essence, until smooth.
• Allow the cake to cool and then add the topping

This cake will keep for a few days in an airtight container. That is, if you can resist it that long!

Fresh Raspberry Jam…

I picked the last of the raspberries out of the garden today, all 175 grams of them and really fancied making some jam

Ingredients :

• 175 grams of fresh raspberries
• 175 grams of Jam sugar

Method:

• take a heavy based pot and add the rasps, warm on a gentle heat to get the juices flowing and mush a few down to get them going
• Once they are juicy add the sugar and bring to the boil then turn down the heat a bit.. cook until a soft set is reached
• place into a sterilised jam jar
• makes 1 x 9 oz jar

Sugar Free Fairy Cakes

Back in April our 15 yr old son was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, and as a result is now insulin dependent 😦

He absolutely loves fairy cakes and if you are a follower of my blog then you will already know this with the amout of different variations I make.. well I decided to experiment a bit, and this morning I made them sugar free

I recently discovered a product called SPLENDA®  it is an alternative to sugar ..here’s what it has to say on their website…

“Whilst a healthy lifestyle is recommended for everyone, it is especially important for people with diabetes. SPLENDA® is suitable for people with such a condition, as it contains only a fraction of the calories and carbohydrates of sugar. Sucralose, the sweetening ingredient in SPLENDA®, is not recognised by the body or broken down for energy, so it has no effect on insulin or blood glucose levels.”

Sugar Free Fairy Cake Recipe:-

• 4oz low fat margarine
• 8 tablespoons of splenda which is the equivalent to 4oz
• 4oz Organic Wholemeal self raising flour
• 2 medium eggs (organic from my own chickens)

Makes 6 muffin sized fairy cakes – I use a muffin tray and muffin paper cases

Method :-

1. Cream the margarine and splenda together until light and fluffy
2. add the eggs and mix well.. I added a little flour as the mix started to split
3. add the remaining flour and mix well
4. Divide the mixture into the cases.muffin tin
5. Bake at 180 degrees C for 20-25 mins
6. Allow to cool slightly then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Update… I just tried one and boy are they sweet! but its a different kind of sweetness if you know what I mean, they leave a sweet after taste in your mouth, they turned out ok, before they cooled down I thought they were going to be dry and grumbly, but they were soft and moist inside just like a fairy cake…

I am going to need to make more of these in the future so will try tinkering around with the recipe a bit and add less of the splenda the next time.

Another Baby comes to visit

I’ve had to keep the dogs in all day today because Mrs Blackbird brought her baby round to show me and it stayed all day, she tucked it away in a purple bush-thing at the woodland corner of my garden..

I watched Mrs Blackie travel back and forward all day feeding her baby, so when she left her baby to find more worms and insects I grabbed by camera and sneaked in for a photograph 🙂