Our neighbour Mark used to live in an inner-city apartment.
When he moved into Mrs M’s house next door, he was ecstatic to find a well-established veggie patch and masses of lawn to mow. One of the first thing he did was plant carrots – he opened a packet of seed and emptied it into the garden bed.
As Mrs M’s soil was so fertile, he ended up with squillions of gnarly, skinny carrots. He’s brought over kilos for us – here are just a few of them…
They’re beautifully sweet, and quite pretty after washing and peeling…
At Pete’s request, I made this carrot cake, adapted from a recipe by Stephanie Alexander. I ended up altering the ingredients quite a bit – I substituted roasted peeled hazelnuts for the walnuts, and used grapeseed oil instead of olive oil. Both of these were deliberate changes – we’re not big walnut fans, and I always feel olive oil can overpower other flavours in a cake.
I baked the cake in a springform 20cm (8 inch) pan instead of the 18cm one specified, which meant the finished cake was a little flatter than expected. I also coarsely grated the carrots – the original recipe called for them to be finely grated, but I didn’t have the patience – and added a little lemon juice to the icing to balance out the butter and cream cheese.
The end result was a homely, comforting cake which everyone loved.
- 125g (4½ oz) self-raising flour
- 150g (¾ cup) brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 140g (²/3 cup) vegetable oil (I used grapeseed)
- 2 large free range eggs
- 250g (2 cups) coarsely grated carrot
- 75g (½ cup) roasted peeled hazelnuts, chopped (original recipe specified walnuts)
1. Preheat oven to 180C (360F) or 160C (320F) with fan. Grease and line either an 18cm (7″) or a 20cm (8″) round cake tin.
2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. In a separate bowl or measuring jug, whisk together the oil and eggs. Add this to the flour, and beat with an electric mixer for a minute or so until combined.
3. Stir in the carrot and hazelnuts, then pour the mixture into the prepared baking tin. If you’re using an 18cm cake tin, bake for about an hour; if using a 20cm tin, reduce this time to about 50 minutes. The cake is cooked when a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
4. Allow to cool in the tin before removing and icing.
Lemon Icing
- 60g (¼ cup) softened unsalted butter
- 125g (4½oz) softened cream cheese
- 115g (4oz) icing sugar mixture (confectioner’s sugar), sifted
- lemon juice
In a small mixing bowl, beat the butter and cream cheese together, then beat in the sifted icing sugar. Add enough lemon juice to form a spreadable icing.
Click here for a printable version of this recipe
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 