Saturday, October 22, 2011

Moist Carrot Cake

Carrot Cake
Often, I find gluten-free cakes can tend towards being a bit dry - this definitely isn't. It's a carrot cake based on a BBC recipe. I find the BBC recipes to be really good in general and this is no exception. I've made some changes though - it's a little too oily and as usual there's too much sugar. Here's what went down well at ours!
  • 120g light muscovado sugar - I reduced this a lot (from 175g) and plenty sweet
  • 125ml sunflower oil - rapeseed oil would be lighter & I reduced from 175ml
  • 3 large eggs , lightly beaten 
  • 140g grated carrots (about 3 medium, though you can squeeze in a little more) 
  • 100g raisins grated 
  • zest of 1 large orange 
  • 175g self-raising flour - I used Dove's Farm GF plain white and wholemeal flours. I added a tsp of baking powder as raising agent. I mostly used the wholemeal and it gave a nice colour.
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon (you might want a little less though it does lower glucose levels!)
  • ½ tsp grated nutmeg (freshly grated will give you the best flavour)
For the icing you can go with cream cheese or the following:
  • 120g icing sugar 
  • 1½-2 tbsp orange juice
Directions:
  1. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4/fan 160C. Oil and line the base and sides of an 18cm square cake tin with baking parchment.
  2. Tip the sugar into a large mixing bowl, pour in the oil and add the eggs. Lightly mix with a wooden spoon. Stir in the grated carrots, raisins and orange rind. 
  3. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices, then sift into the bowl. Lightly mix all the ingredients - when everything is evenly amalgamated stop mixing. The mixture will be fairly soft and almost runny. 
  4. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40- 45 minutes, until it feels firm and springy when you press it in the centre. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn it out, peel off the paper and cool on a wire rack. (You can freeze the cake at this point.) 
  5. Beat together the frosting ingredients in a small bowl until smooth - you want the icing about as runny as single cream. Set the cake on a serving plate and boldly drizzle the icing back and forth in diagonal lines over the top, letting it drip down the sides.
One of the best received and easy cakes we've made in a while. Estimating the carbs is a little tricky but I think 20g CHO per slice was our best guesstimate, with 15 slices in the above recipe - well worth it!

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