Mini carrot cake

 

 

 

Oh carrot cake … To any french person, this sounds so weird. “What? A cake with carrot in in, really?” And yet, whenever I made my compatriots discover my carrot cake, 90% of the time, they loved it. My family is convinced and have asked a few time for me to make it again (I made my mum and dad cake for their 30th wedding anniversary, and carrot cake was the winner!)

Also, for any novice in the baking world, just like a banana cake, this is a very easy cake to start with. Thanks to the moisture of the carrot, you have less, even no chance, to get a dry sponge! I have also added 1 grated apple to my recipe, just to give it even more chance to be moist.

I love to add walnuts inside my carrot cake, but you can decide to discard it. Some people add some raisins or pieces of pinnacle which completes it really well. I always make it with a vanilla cream cheese icing, which is the perfect combination in my opinion.

 

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Quantity: For a 4 inches mini cake

Difficulty:

Ingredients

• 120ml of vegetable oil
• 60g of caster sugar
• 60g of brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 120g of self raising flour
• 1/4 tsp of salt
• 1/2 tbsp of grounded Cinnamon
• 1/4 of grounded Nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp of baking soda
• 1/4 tsp of baking powder
• 150g of grated carrots ( about 2 small carrots)
• 50g of chopped walnuts

• 50g of soft salted butter (at room temperature)
• 125g of cream cheese
• 350g of icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract

Method

Pre heat oven at 180C

1* Grate the carrots: grate the carrots with either an electric food processor or simply with a cheese grater, which works also really well.

2* Make the sponge: In the bowl of an electric mixer, add the flour, sugars, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt,  cinnamon and mixed spices and mix on medium for 1min. In a second bow, add the eggs, oil, vanilla paste and the grated carrots. Then combine both mixture in the bowl of the electric mixer, and mix for 2min on medium speed, until everything is well mixed. Add the walnuts.

3* Bake the sponges: Butter and flour the 4 mini tins, and spread the mix inside. (If there are extra mixture, make 4 cupcakes). Bake for 15min and check with a skewer if it is nicely baked (it should come out clean when cooked). Put on a cooling rack and reserve.

4* Make the cream cheese icing: In the bowl of an electric mixer, add the butter, and beat it for 2-3 min. Add half of the sugar and mix well for another 2min. Then, add all of the cream cheese and beat again for 2min. Add the reminder of the sugar and finish to beat for 2min. Reserve.

5* Assemble the mini cake: Place a cardboard on your turn table and put a little bit of icing to stick your first sponge. Place the sponge, and cover with 1/2cm of icing and do the same with the 4 sponges. Place a kebabs skewer in the middle of the cake to stabilise it. Using a piping bag filled with icing, distribute the icing around and using a cake scraper, finish to correctly ice the cake.

Reserve in the fridge and take out 1h before eating for its full flavour.

Enjoy!

Manon xx