A quiet week

Well, it’s been a quiet cooking week this week. This is mainly due to the fact that my freezer was fit to burst with all the left over homemade goodies from the previous few weeks. It has also been a bit of a blessing in disguise, as the delectable Mr M was off sick and out of action to do his share of the cooking while I was busy in my other guise as a freelance editor/writer. Sunday was, though, the poorly man’s birthday, so I offered to bake him a cake to celebrate and take his mind off his stuffy nose and cotton wool head.

We don’t eat a lot of cake in this house because it takes too long to get through it with just the two of us. It’s a shame, really, because I enjoy baking and do in fact make a mean Victoria sponge. M’s birthday is my annual concession. The past few years I’ve made a chocolate cake, the recipe for which I obtained from my mother in law and which is really chocolaty without being sickly and sweet. This year, though, M chose a carrot cake.

I was intrigued by this choice, since he says he’s hardly ever eaten it. I find this gap in his gastronomic life surprising, as I think carrot cake has come up in most conversations I’ve had about cake since its rise to prominence in the late 1980s, and most people seem to love it. Indeed, I had a part-time job in a baker’s shop years ago and carrot cake was one product absolutely guaranteed to fly off the shelves. Also M’s mother is a marvellous cake baker, but it seems it’s just not a cake she bakes particularly. It turned out that people have brought carrot cake into the office on birthdays and Mr M had been particularly taken with it—the delectable eating the delectable!

I have to say, this was rather a satisfying cake to make because it’s so simple but the result is impressively very tasty. I really do recommend it to anyone who isn’t confident about making cakes. There’s no creaming of the fat and sugar, you don’t have to worry about the batter curdling when you add the eggs, and there’s no issue about the technicalities of folding in the flour to while not knocking out the air. Admittedly, if you have to grate the carrots manually it might be a little tedious, but if you have a food processor, it’s extraordinarily simple (and it’s quite fascinating watching that amount of something get shredded so quickly!).

The traditional topping for carrot cake is made with cream cheese but I couldn’t find any, so I made up a mascarpone icing instead. The orange and lemon yielded a subtle citrus infusion, and it has a freshness that complemented the cake rather well.

Last week’s tutorial seemed quite well received, so I’ve done the same thing again this week. Feedback on whether these are useful is welcome—and of course on the cake if you make one yourself!