Carrot Cake Recipe

Due to popular demand (ehem), I feel very much obliged to share the carrot cake recipe here.

Ingredients:
4 eggs - separate whites and yolks
1 1/2 cups corn or vegetable oil
170g caster sugar
140g brown sugar
1 1/2 cups lightly packed grated carrots (I usually use 3 small carrots or 2 big ones)
100g walnuts - cut into small pieces. I use scissors to cut them.

Sift together:
250g cake flour
2 tsp mixed spices - available at bakery supplies shops
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Method:
1. Beat egg yolks. Then add in oil, sugar, carrots and mix well.
2. Stir in dry ingrediesnts and mix well.
3. Beat egg whites until stiff and fold into the cake mixture.
4. Bake at 180C for 45 min (my Fagor oven takes 40 min to bake the cake)

Cream cheese frosting
Ingredients
120g butter
250g cream cheese
120g icing sugar

Method:
1. Cream butter and cheese until light and fluffy.
2. Put in icing sugar and cream again until smooth.
3. Spread the frosting over the cake.

Tools for cake decoration:
1. Fork - I usually use forks to draw some patterns on the cake. Run the fork on the cake surface to make straight lines (alternate between horizontal and vertical lines. End results will have a weaving effect like tikar). Or, run the fork to make curves (end results look like fish scales or waves). This is the minimalist approach and it's quite neat. Fool-proof method.

2. Plastic bags - the ones used to store or tapau food. Put the frosting in the bag, tie with a rubber band to prevent backflow once you start squeezing the frosting out. Make a small cut at one corner of the bag (squeezed frosting will come out through here). I tried it once and it's not too bad if you have stable hands.

3. Proper decorating tools available at bakery supplies shops. DD was not impressed with my attempt using the plastic bags (no 2 above), so I bought the proper tool sets which cost me RM6.50. The set comes with a few nozzles for different designs. It's easy to use and you can be creative with the many designs. For a first timer like me, the results were not impressive though (see the photo of the cake above).

Reminder: Wait till the cake cools down before you start decorating. Otherwise the heat from the cake will melt the frosting and the end results will looks quite messy.

Happy Baking.