Sunday 14 March 2010

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

carrot cake 1
Who doesn't love carrot cake?? It has to be one of my all time favorite cakes. Super simple to make and incredibly versatile - you can add or take away nuts, sultanas, coconut or pinapple and switch out spices as you wish. The one thing that's absolutely clear to me though is that there's no such thing as the ultimate carrot cake. What floats one person's boat won't be to someone else's taste. And from having a look at the comments on this week's Sweet Melissa Sunday's choice of carrot cake with orange cream cheese icing, most people have their favorite recipe that's tried and true and no other cake would really live up to!
carrot cake 2
I do have a great carrot cake recipe but it's more suited to a loaf cake than a layer cake. More along the lines of wholesome and best without any adornment. This recipe is, I think, what I'll choose when I make a layer cake though! Delicious, moist and (with a couple of minor alterations) full of flavour. Both me and my testers were big fans, one even proclaiming this to be the best carrot cake they'd ever tasted!
carrot cake 4
All I changed was to use light brown sugar to up the depth of flavour, add orange zest to the batter and a good handful of sultanas (love them in carrot cake!). Ooo, I also used pecans rather than walnuts but that was just what I had on hand. I also used a different cream cheese icing - 50g butter made into a buttercream with 100g icing sugar and then 50g cream cheese mixed in. It's yummy and a touch more 'cream cheesey' if that makes sense!!! I love it but, true to form, JJ prefered the Sweet Melissa's cream cheese icing from the red velvet cake! See? You just can't win!!!
carrot cake 3
Thank you to the lovely Julie of A Little Bit of Everything for this week's great pick (the recipe's on her blog) and don't forget to have a see what the other bakers got up to! I think there's some rather fab cupcakes to be seen...

Rosy xx

14 comments:

  1. Beautiful cake! You know you're right, everyone's tastes are different. Guess that's what gives us all something to blog about! :)

    Thanks for baking with me!

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  2. Such a pretty cake Rosy :D

    Katie xox

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  3. Rosy,

    Nice closeup photos of the Carrot Cake.

    Carmen

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  4. Your cake looks delish! I loved this recipe and it's ture I have a all time favortie one I make a lot. Im so glad I made this one because it's my second fav. cc ever! I loved the orange zest in the cream cheese frosting..it was the best!

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  5. I love the pictures of the cake! Wonderful!

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  6. Gorgeous photos, and definitely a gorgeous looking cake. I agree about the recipes too. I have my tried and tested, but can't resist putting others to the test. I'm hoping I remember seeing carrots in the veg box this week as I know I won't be able to go long without giving this a bash, especially with your new icing recipe!

    Hehe, the word verification I got was "porker" I guess I am with all the cake I've been eating recently...

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  7. You're absolutely right about each of us having our personal tried & true carrot cake recipe.

    Your cake looks amazing!

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  8. Your photos are wonderful and the cake looks delicious! We really liked this one here at my house too.

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  9. I love Carrot Cake - great photo's - what camera do you use??

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  10. The cake looks fantastic! I didn't use Melissa's frosting recipe either, I prefer one with a bit more sugar.

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  11. Your cake is gorgeous! I love the way you decorated the top. I really enjoyed this carrot cake - definitely among my favorite SMS recipes!

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  12. I love the close-up photos of the slices. We enjoyed the cake around here too although I made mine into mini-cupcakes for portability.

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  13. Thank you so much for all your lovely comments. Beth - I use a canon 500D with a 50mm f1.8 prime lens. I'm absolutely not an expert in photography at all (as my pictures of anything non-stationary will testify too) but I love this camera and the lens is great for taking snaps of baked goods!

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