For as many years as I care to remember, various people have, at various times, espoused the joys of a great carrot cake. Personally, I could never fully appreciate the concept of a vegetable in a cake (CARROT?!?! In a CAKE?!!), and they often contain dried fruit (DRIED FRUIT!?! In a CAKE?!!?), which I despise - why ruin perfectly good cake with dried up old fruit? - so I left well enough alone. As a result, it seems I've left one of the country's most popular cakes pass me by. As a food aficionado, it's a sin; as a business, it's a rookie mistake to be avoided at all costs.
So, off I went to get some carrots and I searched for a good, free-of-dried-fruit recipe. The one I settled on was taken from the Mary Berry's Baking Bible. As it turns out, it's a bit of a weird recipe and, in my husband's words 'not a real carrot cake', not that I knew this until well after the fact. Mainly because it contains two bananas, presumably in place of butter - absent in this recipe - and no spices at all. Well, I decided to chuck in some spices anyway, since every recipe I've ever seen except this one includes them.
When I brought it out of the oven it didn't look quite right...as you can see here:
Frankly, it looked a bit lumpy. And as it cooled, it took on a sort of 'saggy bag' appearance, which is generally not desirable in a bag, much less a cake!
Okay, I thought. Maybe carrot cake can just look a bit funky. I figured I'd let it cool, ice it, and see how it tasted. Maybe it looked a little weird but it would taste amazing? So I put together the cream cheese icing. I should add here that I have never had cream cheese icing before either. Having tasted it, I cannot for the LIFE of me work out why!! It's amazing! Have you tasted it?! If not, make some! Even if you don't have a cake to put it on. Dip biscuits in it or just eat it straight out of the bowl if you must because it is a revelation of delicious, creamy sweetness. I'm salivating just sat here reminiscing about it. Yum.
Anyway, back to the cake. I iced, I cut, I tasted. Sadly, it tastes entirely of banana and spices and not even slightly of carrot! It also has a VERY tight crumb. So tight there really is no crumb. I can only assume that the 2tsp baking powder I was instructed to include needed a little more time in the oven to stabilise.
On the bright side, it is a delicious cake! Not really a carrot cake, and I think I will have to use a different recipe next time, but still tasty and I suspect it will still get eaten, if mainly for the icing. I think, however, it won't be long before I have another try, so keep an eye out for future posts!
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