Spiced Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I have adapted this recipe over the years from a Delia Smith book! I love Delia's recipes but found that the resulting cake from her Carrot Cake recipe was not quite big enough for my liking. As with so many other things, cakes are subject to fashion and trends, with the current tides in the favour of very deep cakes. The internet has made it that much easier for us to drool over the huge cakes created by our American cousins that the fashion for taller tiers has gone global!

This is a great cake for this current spell of fabulous weather. You will notice that the butter in the cake mix has been omitted and sunflower oil used in its place. The result is a very light texture that is deliciously moist without being heavy.
My recipe also contains Orange Extract. Good quality natural Orange Extract is divine, with a much stronger flavour than orange zest and is far less messy to use. As with all extracts, please opt for the very best quality that you can afford as these really make all the difference.

Sticking with our Transatlantic theme, I always couple my Carrot Cake with an American inspired Cream Cheese Frosting. This is essentially just buttercream made with half butter and half cream cheese but the result is a wonderful creamy texture that holds up to being spread all over the cake or piped on cupcakes too.
Treat yourself to a slice of this cake with your afternoon tea. Remember, a little respite from the hot weather, somewhere shady, with a cup of tea (to replace lost moisture) and a slice of cake (to replace lost sugar in the bloodstream) is practically doctor's orders!

Carrot Cake Ingredients:
350g Dark Brown Soft Sugar
300ml Sunflower Oil
4 Large Eggs
1 tsp Orange Extract
400g Self-Raising Flour
6 tsp Mixed Spice
2 tsp Bicarb of Soda
400g Grated Carrot
200g Sultanas
100g Desiccated Coconut

1. Whisk the sugar, oil and eggs until combined. You will need to whisk until the sugar is all dissolved and this should take 3 minutes or so, in a freestanding mixer. Add the orange extract.
2. Combine the flour, mixed spice and bicarb in a separate bowl and fold this into the wet ingredients a third at a time.
3. Add the carrot, sultanas and coconut to the cake mixture and fold these through until all are well covered.
4. Spoon the cake mix into two lined 8" sandwich tins and bake in a 170° oven for around 35 minutes. The cake is done when it has risen and springs back when pressed lightly. If you are unsure, a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should come out clean or with only a few crumbs on it.
5. Leave the cakes to cool on a cooling rack in their tins for 10 minutes before turning them out to cool completely.

Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients:
125g Unsalted Butter
125g Cream Cheese (Full Fat)
250g – 350g Icing Sugar

1. Cream the butter in a freestanding mixer for 2-3 minutes until soft
2. Add 125g of the icing sugar and mix until combined, then add half of the cream cheese and mix again
3. Repeat this until all of the ingredients are thoroughly combined and the frosting is light and creamy
4. In this heat, you may find that you need to use up to an extra 100g of icing sugar to keep the buttercream together.

You will know that you are at the right consistency when you have the texture of a thick whipped cream. You should be able to drag a (clean!) finger through the mix and leave a trail where your finger has been, which does not immediately disappear back into the mix.

Use this frosting to sandwich your two layers of Carrot Cake together. You will also have sufficient frosting to cover the top and sides of the cake too if you like!

Charlotte White is a professional cake designer based in London. Her company, Restoration Cake, has a reputation for creating stunning bespoke celebration cakes that taste as good as they look. Charlotte's first book is due for release in Spring 2014. www.restorationcake.co.uk