Walnut Carrot Cake Recipe

Whew, I finally made a decent cake last term! With my hands failing me with my chocolate cake that looked like a burger to my crunchy apple crumble, I must say I was really proud to have made this Walnut Carrot Cake! I know I've made a walnut carrot cake before, but I think this one is particularly tasty and moist because of the icing and the deep cake tin that I used. :)

This recipe was altered from the allrecipes recipe:
http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/18529/carrot-walnut-cake.aspx
which is by the way, an amazing recipe. I modified it slightly so here's my version:

Ingredients:

• 375g plain flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
  
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
• coffee mix (1 tsp instant coffee and 2 tsp hot water)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 225g butter, softened
• 220g brown caster sugar
  
• 200g white caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 125g chopped walnuts
• 440g grated carrots

Icing:

• 200g cream cheese
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 70g butter
• 100g icing sugar

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees/gas mark 4. Line a deep cake tin 10" with greaseproof paper and grease the sides.
   
2. Sift dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, bicarb) together into a large mixing bowl.
   
3. In a separate bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add in the eggs one at a time and mix until light and fluffy. Pour in the coffee mix.
4. Add the sifted ingredients. Mix well.
   
5. Fold in the carrots and then the walnuts. Save some walnuts for garnish.
6. Bake for 1 hour until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
7. For the icing, mix the cream cheese with vanilla essence. Then add butter and sugar until smooth. Spread on cooled cake and top the edges with bits of walnuts.
   

It's a great recipe if you want a nice moist cake that is not oily like the traditional recipes. It's really simple to make (except the immense power used to grate carrots) so I would recommend it as an easy cake make! ;)

Awesome Cakes '11

Here are a bunch of awesome cakes made by me and my housemates over the academic year 10/11! :)
I made a cake for Mark's Birthday. Banana white chocolate cake as the frisbee and chocolate cake as the base. I tried to make it look like a frisbee on ground but didn't really look it. At least it tasted yummy!

My awesome birthday cake made by Mark Jones. Marble Chocolate Fudge cake Mmmm...


Mark Jones' Coffee Walnut Cake which was amazing! Even Cat who didn't fancy coffee cake loved it. :D
Cat's awesome World Cake! Made for Natasha Dudas' birthday. We brought this all the way to the park too to enjoy it with the Royal Wedding! (I coloured the flags...)
Angry Birds cake with joint effort of the house. Of course most of it done by the amazing Catrin Eira! :)
The birds! All Cat's good work.

There were lots more like Cat's amazing cookies, Golden Snitch cake, Victorian Sponge and pies! But I can't just give away all her little secrets, can I? Well, truth is I don't have the pictures so maybe next time. :P

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

When I got back from London, I was super bored in the house so I ended up baking a lovely white chocolate cheesecake. It was my first attempt to do so and it turned out very well. I would recommend this recipe to advanced beginners as it is quite easy to make (if you've made a plain cheesecake before!)

Ingredients:
9" spring form pan (or slightly smaller)
1/2 packet of plain digestive biscuits
1/4 cup melted butter
1 packet of frozen raspberries
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup water
1 tbsp cornstarch
4 spoons of sifted flour
2 packets of cream cheese (each 250g)
1 packet of single cream (about 180g)
1/2 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 cup white chocolate chunks
1 tsp vanilla essence

Directions:
1. To make the base, crumble the digestive biscuits into the spring form pan. Mash the biscuits and mix with melted butter until it clumps together to form the cheesecake base. Press down the base and smoothen until it forms a flat surface. When done, put the base in the freezer.
2. To make the raspberry sauce, in a small saucepan, add the frozen raspberries. Add 2 tbsp sugar, water and cornstarch. Stir and bring to a boil for 5 minutes or until the sauce is thick. Sift/strain the sauce to remove the raspberry seeds.
3. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius. Melt the white chocolate chunks in the microwave in a bowl. Add cream and mix.
4. In a large bowl, combine cream cheese and sugar. Mix until smooth. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add 4 tbsp of flour. Stir in the melted chocolate and cream. Finally, add 1 tsp of vanilla essence.
5. Take the base out of the freezer. Wrap the bottom of the springform pan with aluminium foil. Pour half the batter onto the base. Add three tablespoons of raspberry sauce. Then top it off with the other half of the batter and another three tablespoons of raspberry sauce. Use a knife and swirl the batter with the sauce to create a marbled effect.
6. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour. When it's baked, let it cool in the oven for a few hours. Then, remove from oven, wrap in clingfilm and put it in the fridge overnight before serving.
7. Remember you can keep the extra raspberry sauce which is very tasty with the cake!

^_^ Omnomnomwhitecholoateraspberrycheesecake. It's such a mouthful isn't it?