On Christmas morning yesterday, I decided to try my hand at a carrot cake recipe. It’s one of Cliff’s favorite cakes! To be honest, I had scrambled to come up with a surprise for Cliff, after he had incessantly told me he had just THE BIGGEST CHRISTMAS SURPRISE in store for me this year. Indeed, he very lovingly surprised me with what he calls a “transformer”- you’ll see in a bit!
So I awoke to prepare this surprise, asked Cliff to close his eyes and presented this to him. TA-DAH!
Orginally, I had wanted to try something chocolatey for him. Cliff’s chocolate cravings have emerged, but the shop ran out of cocoa powder this Christmas- looks like everyone is baking!
If you’ve had too much rich food to eat this Christmas,
and are looking for a healthier, not-so-sweet cake to bake for your loved ones to usher in the New Year,
this has to be the recipe.
It’s easy!
Food for Love:
Cake
– 3 cups of grated carrots
– 1 and ¼ cups of brown sugar (most recipes call for 2 cups of white sugar)
– 4 eggs
– 2 cups of plain flour
– 1 teaspoon of salt
– 2 teaspoons of cinnamon
– 2 teaspoons of baking soda
– (Optional: I added in a teaspoon of nutmeg and half a teaspoon of ground ginger just for that kick and extra flavour.)
– 1 cup of nuts (If you don’t have nuts, feel free to replace this with a cupful of raisins or cranberries, or if you’re adventurous, trail mix.)
Frosting
– Cream Cheese (I used 1 block of Philadelphia cream cheese)
– ¼ cup icing sugar
– 2 tablespoons of butter
The Act:
- Gather a bunchful of beautiful carrots and peel them.
2. Grate them finely, using a metal grater.
It does take a little effort, but it’s easy!
Three cupfuls of grated carrot worked out to be about six long and skinny carrots for me.
3. In a bowl or container, mix your flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon together.
4. In a separate mixing bowl, mix your 4 eggs and sugar together.
Some recipes I saw suggested the eggs and sugar to be mixed until they turn into a pale paste,
but because we’re using healthier brown sugar and mixing by hand,
this consistency, with the mixture being a little foamy to show how well-stirred it is with the humble whisk,
will be good enough.
5. Pour the flour bit by bit into the egg-and-sugar mixture in the mixing bowl.
By this time, depending on how fast you are, you might want to pre-heat your oven to 175 degrees Celsius.
That’s about 15 minutes before you pop your baking pan in.
6. If you have nuts, raisins, cranberries or I’m thinking even chopped apricots,
pour them into the mixture now.
Cliff’s mum had mailed us a packet of trail mix containing almonds, cashews and cranberries so I used that and some walnuts I found in the cupboard.
You don’t need a blender to chop the nuts. You can simple put all the nuts in a little plastic bag and whack the guts out of them using a rolling pin or whatever hard object. I used a heavy metal spoon.
7. Now, dump the whisk. Using a spatula or a simple spoon, fold in the grated carrots.
8. Pour the mixture into a baking dish that is greased.
I learnt that greasing and then adding some flour helps to ensure the cake pops out of the pan nicely,
without any sides stuck.
Pop it into the oven for about 30-40 minutes,
and then take it out when a toothpick in the middle comes out clean.
9. All right, it’s time to take a break!
Your cake will take a long while to cool. So in the meantime, go clean the house, do work, blog, email et cetera. You can also use this time to think about how you’d like to decorate your cake!
10. Now, you might be tempted to skip the frosting,
since your carrot cake is already smelling heavenly.
But don’t miss this step!
I was tempted to back out since I didn’t realize the cream cheese frosting was actually
more than just the cream cheese itself.
But no regrets- a little effort goes a long way in making this humble and homely cake very special,
with even a touch of royal.
11. Mix together one block of Philadelphia cream cheese, two tablespoons of butter, and just a quarter of a cup of icing sugar.
Most recipes call for half to a cup of icing sugar but I really don’t see the need for it- in fact, keeping the frosting less sweet adds a certain delicious savoury-ness to the cake.
If you don’t own an electric mixer, or dread having to wash it afterwards,
you can use a fork like I did. (Just give the cheese and butter some time to soften.)
12. Since this was Cliff’s Christmas Day present, and he always talks about how much he misses snow back home in Canada, I decided to have a White Christmas theme!
A humble knife is all you need.
This is where the cream cheese frosting doubles up as snow.
And you can have fun decorating the sides with lots of heart-healthy nuts too!
I had intended to buy some Christmassy figurines to stick on top of the cake, but since many of those figurines look kinda’ tacky anyway, I thought, why not design my own?
With some imagination and a toothpick, you can make your own Christmas stick-ins too!
You can present it with a card that fits the occasion!
Cliff often tells me how much he misses snow.
After I had presented this to the Hungry Husband, he gleefully gave me a portable phone charger, saying, “SURPRISE!” Seeing the look of incredulous-ness on my face, he then burst out laughing, “Just kidding! Here’s your REAL SURPRISE!”
And then, right before my very eyes, he transformed the humble box into the most magnificent and stunning…
… easel.
“For you to paint on, my love. You can bring it to Africa, too!”
I was most touched because months ago,I had mentioned in passing one day that it would be nice to paint on an easel.
And you took that passing remark seriously and remembered.
It was so nice to see the look of satisfaction on your face as you enjoyed the cake.
Love.