Seasalt Nourish: Bread & Butter’s Famous Carrot Cake
Find a use for your surplus Christmas carrots with this delicious recipe from Bread & Butter in Truro.
In the cosy period between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, there’s nothing better than the smell of a fresh bake warming in the oven.
This lightly spiced Carrot Cake recipe from Bread & Butter café in Truro is sweet, moist and easy to make. Plus, it’s great for using up any spare uncooked carrots, making it the perfect post-Christmas bake.
It’s a favourite amongst Bread & Butter regulars so we caught up with Kate, one of the cafe’s owners and chefs, who has shared the recipe with us.
Bread & Butter’s Famous Carrot Cake
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 150g brown sugar
- 150g caster sugar
- 300ml sunflower oil
- 3 large free range eggs
- 300g plain flour
- 1 tsp bicarb
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- ½ tsp salt
- 300g coarsely grated carrots
- 100g chopped walnuts
For the cream cheese icing:
- 250g butter, cubed
- 200g tub of cream cheese
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 700g icing sugar
- Zest of a large orange
For the brittle decoration:
- 100g chopped walnuts
- 150g caster sugar
Preparation
- Coarsely grate your carrots
- Chop your walnuts
- Take butter out of the fridge to allow it to warm up a bit and cut into small cubes
- Preheat oven to 150 fan
Method
- Start by preparing and measuring all of your ingredients.
- In a large bowl, mix your sugars, oil and eggs until smooth.
- Slowly sieve in your flour, bicarb, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger and salt. Mixing as you go along.
- Add your grated carrots and chopped walnuts and mix well.
- Line your tray (approx. 22 x 32 x 6cm high) with parchment. Tip: we scrunch our parchment paper up before flattening again and lining the tin. It helps it stay in place when tipping your cake batter in.
- Pour the batter into the tin and spread the mix evenly. Bake for 50 mins at 150 (fan). Then allow to cool in the tin for 20 mins before tipping onto a wire rack.
To make the icing
- Next, you want to make the cream cheese icing. Tip: Room temperature cubed butter will make this process so much easier and quicker.
- With a wooden spoon (always wooden!) beat together the cream cheese and butter until pale and smooth.
- Slowly add the icing sugar (get ready for an icing cloud) and mix well with each addition until all pale and smooth. Add your orange zest and beat. Set aside.
To make the brittle
- To make the brittle decoration, tip your chopped walnuts onto a piece of parchment paper that is sitting on a baking tray. Don’t spread them out too much.
- Warm a small saucepan on the stove and add your caster sugar. DO NOT STIR THIS – even though you will be desperate to! Keep the pan moving by shaking and swirling it.
It will slowly start to look like little glass chips but will eventually (be patient) dissolve. You can turn up the heat slightly and it will turn fairly quickly into an amber, warm, thick glossy caramelised goo.
- Carefully pour your caramel over the nuts then set aside and allow to cool.
- When totally cool, break it up by whizzing for a couple of seconds in a processor or smash it with a rolling pin. You want smallish shards/big crumbs.
- Spread your icing over your totally cooled cake base and then sprinkle with your walnut brittle. Then simply cut into squares and put the kettle on.
This cake lasts 3 or so days in an airtight container in the fridge – but in our experience it gets gobbled up long before that.
Don’t forget to share your bake with us on Instagram by tagging @SeasaltCornwall and @BreadAndButterTruro
