Love To Bake

With buttercream icing, roses and daisies to decorate, this one made by myself!

Decorated with chocolate buttercream icing and royal icing

I just love this cake! Not made by me, it’s just a beautiful wedding cake!

So here is the method, starting by putting your oven to 180C/160Cfan/Gas4

In the smaller bowl, whisk the eggs and sunflower oil together until smooth, it should go a lovely pale yellowy colour and leave the bowl until later. In the larger bowl you’re going to put all the dry ingredients in. Mix the sugar, both types of flour, spices and bicarbonate of soda. No suggested order, just throw them all in and mix! I find that brown sugar tends to stick together more than white sugar, so on this occasion I am sieving! The rocks of sugar that are left at the bottom, just crush them through with your fingers and knuckle. Crush, then shake the sieve, crush, then shake! At the end if you get any small dry rocks, they’re no good to you, so just throw them into your food bin. Don’t forget to RECYCLE! You don’t need to sift the wholemeal flour it will take you too long as it has wholemeal bits in, which will get stuck at the end, so don’t do it! Everything else should be okay to use the sieve.

Now we’re adding the currants, whichever you’ve opted for, as well as the juice and zest into the dry mix, there should be quite a lot of fruit juice. Also add in the egg mix now, so it goes quite loose. This bit, I am using the wooden spoon, I find it a lot easier for the dry mixture. Now grate your carrot into the bowl, I’ve used quite a lot of carrot this time and if you’re going to use walnuts, add them in now. Mix altogether, by now you’re hands should be very orange! Who needs fake tan?!

Now I’m spooning it into the tin, very carefully because the mix is very loose. Keep in the oven between 30-45 minutes, depending on your oven. Let it cool off while in the tin to keep its shape.

For the frosting, it’s always best to use an electric whisk, mix it all together on high beat until very smooth. I also added a few pinches of cinnamon to the icing, giing it that extra sweet flavouring. When I’d done this, mine was still loose so I put the bowl in the fridge for 10 minutes before layering on the cake. With this recipe, there is quite a lot of frosting, so it’s lovely and thick! I had some white chocolate carrot decorations which I picked up at my local supermarket, I used this instead of walnuts and sprinkled even more cinnamon on top! Enjoy!

Here’s the ingredients and utensils I used for the Carrot Cake Loaf. It has a cinnamon cream cheese frosting on the top.

Ingredients:
1 orange and/or lemon zest and juice (optional)
50g sultanas/raisins (optional)
150ml sunflower oil, extra for greasing if you don’t have cases for your loaf tin
2 medium eggs
85g wholemeal self raising flour
85g self raising flour
2tsp spices (optional)
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 medium carrot, roughly grated
50g walnuts, chopped into the mixture, and halves on the top for decoration (optional)

ICING
200g soft cheese
50g softened butter
100g icing sugar
A few pinches of cinnamon

Utensils:
Small bowl for the orange/lemon juice
Measuring jug
Scales
Two mixing bowls, medium and large
Whisk
Wooden spoon
Sieve
Lemon(orange) squeeze
Grater
Electric whisk

I used a hand whisk for the eggs, a wooden spoon for the dry mixture and the electric whisk for the frosting mix. This is just what I found easier

I made a decision and baked a Carrot Cake today! It went well, smells beautiful and I will post the recipe very soon! I haven’t made this before and it was very simple! I’ll put a few hints and tips in, which you can add in or make your own, anything you decide will taste delicious!

Before the recipe I’ll post an ingredients list, first of all, if you want to put sultanas or raisins in your mixture you will have to start to prepare the night before. Juice your orange/lemon or both, pour into a bowl and add the zest plus your choice of currant. Leave at room temperature overnight. If you don’t have time to do this then you can just mix the juice, zest and currants, pop the bowl in the microwave for two minutes.

You’ll see in the next post I’ll put (optional) quite a lot. You can choose orange/lemon or both for the juice and zest. I opted for just orange. You can use whichever spices you please, I went for cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, which is why it smells so good! Finally, you can add walnuts, or just decorate with walnuts, I didn’t use them this time at all.

I have so many of them running through my mind right now! I just can’t decide on one! I’ll be baking something tomorrow, what we still don’t know yet! So there should be a post very soon, in the next few days. I want to try something a bitter healthy-ish! I’ve been asked to try this, I’m a choc lover, not a health lover! So I do need to have a good think about some recipes, new and old! I’ll be keeping you up to date!

I’m English, so I do apologise if I ramble on about certain things. I’ll be mentioning where I buy my ingredients, utensils, decorations and such. I’m aware not everybody would have heard of these shops, and I’ll be doing things in grams, not cups, I haven’t mastered the understanding of this yet. I may even use icing sugar on occasion, and by this I do mean powdered sugar. Anything at all you don’t understand, ASK ME ANYTHING, and I promise I’ll reply as soon as I can!!

Okay, so this is one of my favourites to make! It is so simple, and tastes SO delicious. Before I had attempted this, I wouldn’t go anywhere near lemon, I am such a fussy eater. Now, I can’t stay away from this little beauty! Making it in a loaf tin just makes it look so much more presentable; I opt for either this, or squares.

To start with, I’ll be doubling my ingredients to make 2 loaves. So I start by weighing 4 eggs, 225g, then I weigh out this amount for the butter, caster sugar and self raising flour. I need to ‘cream’ together the sugar and butter. When I take the butter out of the fridge, it is very hard, so I always pop it in the microwave. First I get the right amount (225g), cut in into cubes and put into a small bowl, I only microwave it for 5 seconds, I just want to soften the butter and not let it melt. The sugar is already in my mixing bowl, so I just add the butter, with the back on a wooden spoon I mix the butter into the sugar. You’ll see this in the picture.

Okay, so next I’m mixing the eggs. I’m doing this using a measuring jug, cracking each egg on the side of the jug, using the whole egg. With a fork I mix the four eggs together quite vigorously. Now I’m pouring the egg into the mixture, but only a bit at a time. I want it to mix properly and not let the mixture go too loose at the start.

In the mixture we have the sugar, butter and egg, now I’ll be adding the flour, it is best to use a sieve while putting it all together. Mine however has decided to go missing, so I have just put my fingers through it to make sure there are no lumps and bumps! I just put a little bit in at a time, so it gradually gets thicker. As I’m doing this I can still see some lumps, this is the butter. I always use a wooden spoon rather than an electric hand whisk, but sometimes it doesn’t go so smoothly. Once I’ve finished the whole process, I’m going to go over it with the whisk to get rid of the last bumps! You can see here just how thick the mix is now, getting quite tough to stir, especially with my weak joints!! Don’t worry; we’ve still got the lemon juice to add!

It’s time for the lemon! I took far too many photos for this bit! So I have a lemon squeeze, easier, no sticky fingers, and so cheap! You can pick them up from anywhere! We just want the juice, no pulp and the squeeze helps to separate. First off I’m grating the lemon into the mix, if you can, get yourself a grate, please don’t use a cheese grater!! It is so hard to clean afterwards! I’m grating a whole lemon into it, remember I’ve doubled the ingredients, and I have a large lemon. Once this is done, mix it, and then we’ll start to squeeze. Cut the lemon in half and begin to twist! Then the next half, there will be a lot of juice because I’m using the whole lemon. My squeeze has a spout so I can just pour it straight in, as you can see there is quite a lot of juice going in, and it makes the mixture very loose.

Okay, so the mixture is done, I now need to divide it into my two loaf tins, lined with cases, when you’ve done this flatten the top of each loaf evenly, a palette knife is best to use; if you don’t have one a butter knife or the back of a dessert spoon will do fine. I really need to invest in a pallet knife! Once this is done, it goes straight into the oven, on 180 degrees C for approx 20 mins depending on the oven. I’ve put mine on the bottom shelf, just so they don’t go too brown on the top! While it’s in the oven I clean up then start sorting out the drizzle. This is usually done with caster sugar; to give it a crunchy texture on the outside. Today I’m just using the lemon juice, giving it a soft texture both inside and out. So I cut the second lemon in half, twist and squeeze to let all the juice out, we’re going to put the juice over the loaf as soon as it comes out of the oven so it can soak right to the bottom. As it comes out, prick the top with a fork or skewer, giving lots of gaps for the drizzle to sink in. Now the end product, as you can see the glistening of the drizzle on top, it will look a lot better if and when you finish it off with caster sugar. Enjoy!

I just want to talk about the ingredients that I use, first off the eggs, which are becoming more and more expensive every time I buy them!! There is a brand called Ella Valentine, they are baking eggs. I always prefer these; they tend to mix so much easier. Even better that they are cheaper than standard medium eggs, although these are large and still free range! I picked these ones up from Sainsbury’s, there’s a photo below, on the inside of the box they have a recipe; there are more on the website for you to look at too! I change the butter I use quite regularly; the standard price is around £0.80-1.50. I found a bakers butter in Morrison’s for a whopping 55 pence each! This is a 250g block, so I definitely bought it in bulk! When it comes to self-raising flour, I’m easy; I don’t see a difference in quality or price between the supermarkets!