Ready iced carrot cake

So again I have failed to keep up with my promise of monthly blogging but this year just seems to be zooming by! I do have a couple of recipes in the bag that I will get around to posting soon, including my new personal favourite ‘French buttercream’.

But until I get around to compiling all of my top buttercream making tips here is another firm favourite of mine…carrot cake. Thanks to a secret family recipe passed down from generation to generation (well passed down from my mum to me) I think I make a pretty mean carrot cake. The problem I find is that I am ridiculously impatient when it comes to letting the cake fully cool before lathering on the lightly whipped up cream cheese icing. This results in the icing warming up, beginning to melt and generally slipping off of the cake as I attempt to scoop it up from the sides and pile it back on top. Now this problem could be solved with me just waiting a little bit longer before icing the cake…or alternatively bake the carrot cake with the cream cheese topping already applied!!

So here is a recipe for a mascarpone topped carrot cake bar. My recipe was inspired by this recipe over at le crème de la crumb. I, possibly controversially, added raisins, which I don’t think any good carrot cake should be without, as well as adding a few nuts. Unlike Tiffany, who on the original recipe managed to produce a lovely cream cheese swirl effect on her carrot cake, I just ended up with a layer of the mascarpone mix covering the whole of the cake surface. But is looks nice sliced up still and adds a different texture to the top of the cake.

So what are you waiting for…give this a go!

INGREDIENTS

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

180g plain flour

1 cup of grated carrot (I used 3 carrots to get this)

75g raisins

50g walnuts (roughly chopped)

225g caster sugar

50g melted butter

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

120g mascarpone cheese

60g caster sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

25g flour

Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease a 12”x9” baking tray (or similar)

Sift together the flour, cinnamon and baking powder and set aside.

In a separate bowl mix the carrots, raisins, walnuts, sugar, melted butter, eggs and vanilla essence and mix together. Then gradually fold in the flour mix until fully combined. Transfer the batter to the greased pan and spread out evenly.

In a clean bowl mix the mascarpone, sugar, egg, vanilla and flour together before dolloping on top of the carrot cake mix. At this point you can either use the tip of a knife to create a swirl effect, or as I did just smooth a layer of the cheese mix over the whole baking tray.

Bake for 25 minutes until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool (a little) before tucking in!!