The cake started out for a birthday, with me saying: yes, i’ll make a cake. Carrot, you say? then thumbing through as many cookbooks as i could find for something that would remind me of my carrot cake making days. I didn’t find a pineapple-carrot one, which is really what i wanted, but i found a good basic carrot cake and began adding things that wouldn’t interfere with the balance of moisture that the seemingly indestructible recipe delivered: raisins and sometimes candied orange rind, increasing the amounts of nearly everything except the basic cake batter.
The result was blissful. I made a cake a week, a cake every couple of days, i made little cakes and planned cakes shaped like pyramids, pianos, and puppy dogs. i brought my friend Steven this cake for his birthday with his portrait drawn in cinnamon shakes. I made cakes for birthdays, dinner parties, and cakes for French class; then came my own birthday. My friend Mridula Baljekar and I were planning a menu of spiciness: her chicken and tomato curry, my southern Italian spaghetti aglio-olio, her chickpea chaat, my ratatouille filled with middle eastern spices. I was yearning to make yet another carrot cake–but with the scent and spices of our menu and the American/British fluffy carrot-y cake layered with cream-cheese and butter frosting….I knew I’d have to go exotic.
My cake already has a nice jolt of ginger, and sometimes i boost that with fresh ginger, or candied ginger, but in the back of my mind was carrot halva and the other Indian sweets scented with cardamom. Carrots love cardamom. And I love cardamom.
To be honest, you don’t need to put cardomom in it at all: its good without it, but a more unusual twist with it. If you get the carrot cake bug, you might find yourself coming up with all sorts of other things to add. I’ve been wondering about orange flower water in the frosting–will let you know how it turns out.
measures are in metric, will add usa equivilents soon
Cardamom Carrot Cake
Preheat oven to gas mark 3/ 170C
300g soft brown sugar, or light brown muscovado sugar
3 eggs
300 ml vegetable oil (sometimes i add a bit of olive oil in place of some of the vegetable oil)
300g self rising flour
1 easpoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon or to taste
1/2-1 teaspoon dried powdered ginger
Optional: a few tablespoons candied, sugared, ginger or ginger in syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2-1 teaspoon vanilla extract/essence
Dash almond extract
5-6 cardomom pods, seeds only
300-400g (about 3 big ones) coarsely shredded
About 75 g coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans
Several handfuls of raisins (or mixture raisins, sultana and diced dried orange peel)
In a large bowl with a wooden spoon, mix together the brown sugar, eggs and vegetable oil until well combined.
Stir in the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, salt, vanilla, almond and cardamom, stirring only until well mixed, then add the carrots, and mix in until only well mixed. The consistency should be something like a thick gloppy batter.
Pour into 2 cake/sponge tins (smaller than usa ones, i’d say, maybe 8 inches?) that you’ve oiled and floured.
Bake about 20-25 minutes until golden brown on top, springy when touched, and no longer liquidy.
Remove from oven, use a knife to loosen the cake from the edge in the pan. Invert them onto baking racks to cool completely.
Make frosting:
1 stick of unsalted butter (about 175g/ 6 ounces), at room temperature
Icing/confectioners sugar, to taste: about 300g
2 packages cream cheese, at room temperature
Several generous dashes vanilla extract/essence
Drop or two almond extract/essence
In a big bowl with a wooden spoon beat the butter to soften it; if its too cool, warm it a few moments in the microwave or in a bowl over a larger bowl of warm water.
If the confectioners sugar is lumpy, sift it first; usually when its first purchased its not lumpy, once its been opened, it can be very lumpy. Judge for yourself.
Beat the confectioners sugar into the butter, then when well mixed, beat in the cream cheese, taking care not to overbeat as overbeating can cause graininess.
Taste for sweet-sour balance, and add vanilla and almond extracts; mix well and chill until ready to ice the cake.
With over 70 cookbook titles (including contributions) to her credit, Marlena conjures up flavours and dishes from the Mediterranean to Mexico, California to France to the Italian islands and single subjects such as chili peppers, olive oil, mushrooms, to a book on classic Jewish food from all over the world.