well. carrots are not exactly herbs. but kalyn sais veggies count, too. so my entry to this weeks weekend herb blogging is a carrot cake. not just any carrot cake. its one that i have been eating & baking since i was a child - it's the scent of birthday parties, childhood and home sweet home. i remember sitting in front of the oven for ever, to see this moist and wonderful cake rise. of course i always thought the marzipane carrots looked cute (still do). but all in all - this is a cake that's not too sweet but still very, very delicious.
i like to believe that (hence the 200g of butter) it's a healthy one, too. carrots are a rich source of beta-carotene, it's said that carrots reduce the incidence of cancer and are also beneficial for the heart, circulation, skin and eye sight. well - i ate truckloads of this cake, but still ended up with glasses. but: give it a go! we always say "if it doesn't help, it doesn't harm either".
the fancy cream-cheese frosting was my idea. you can skip it and simply glue the marzipan carrots with some icing sugar, mixed with some lemon juice, onto the cake.
RECIPE
200g butter
350g flour
1 packet (about 15g) of baking soda
125g sugar
125g brown sugar
a pinch of salt
3 teaspoons cinnamon powder
a pinch of ground cloves
250g carrots, peeled and finely grated
250g ground almonds
1 bio lemon, grated zest and juice
4 eggs
heat oven to 180c° and line a 30cm caketin.
melt butter in a pan and let cool. mix flour with baking soda in a bowl. mix sugar, salt, cinnamon, ground cloves, grated carrots, almonds, lemonzest and -juice.
mix cooled butter with eggs and add to the mixture. mix well until all is well coated and you end up with a moist cakebatter. fill into prepared caketin.
bake for about 50-60 minutes on the lower level of the oven until a skewer comes out clean. let cool.
for the glaze:
about 8-10 marzipan carrots
grated zest of one lemon
1 tablespoon lemon juice
200g cream cheese
250g icing sugar
mix all ingredients and spread generously on top of the carrot cake. decorate with marzipan carrots before serving.
keeps - wrapped in clingfilm - for about a week in the fridge.
14 comments: