One of the first cakes I remember baking with my mother is a carrot cake. She had got the recipe from a colleague. I remember sitting on the dining table watching Amma grate the carrots, while I sifted flour. I was so excited at the prospect of baking a cake that I didn’t even notice that we were essentially putting vegetables (ew) in a cake. When I finally got a bite of this cake, realisation struck and 4-year-old Mo decided she did not like carrot cake.
Consequently my mother stopped baking this cake, and I was only reminded of it when I watched Jake Peralta on Brooklyn Nine-Nine say “Well it’s my least favourite type of cake, so rarely. If I absolutely have to, I’ll just eat the frosting” when Terry asks him, “When was the last time you had a carrot?”
The above exchange made me giggle, because I definitely agreed with Jake Peralta.
A few months ago, my mother mentioned that she’d bought a generous quantity of carrots and asked if I wanted to bake a carrot cake. Memories of the earlier time came back and I vehemently declared that I wasn’t interested. So she set out to bake one herself, having found a recipe in Pooja Dhingra’s “Can’t Believe It’s Eggless” – which is an amazing cookbook to buy if you don’t eat eggs!
This carrot cake included walnuts and cinnamon, and used flax seeds instead of eggs. The aroma that wafted around the house while this cake was in the oven was lovely - and that was just the tip of the iceberg. For lack of a better way to describe it, this cake was like a hug: warm, comforting and familiar. The carrots and cinnamon gave this cake a wonderful flavour and the walnuts added a lovely texture. This recipe changed my mind about carrot cakes, and I am eternally grateful.
Since then, I have baked this carrot cake multiple times, and it has become a family favourite. Perhaps because it has carrots – so it’s got to be at least slightly healthy, right?
Since this isn’t my recipe, I will not be typing it out. But luckily for you all, Pooja Dhingra’s Le15 Patisserie and Café shared this recipe on Instagram (@le15india) as part of their quarantine baking list and you can find it here.
If you want to use eggs instead of flax seeds, use 3 eggs in this recipe. I also choose to reduce the quantity of walnuts to 60g instead of the recommended 100g, but either way this cake is bound to end up absolutely scrumptious!
I love how perfectly cream cheese complements carrot cake, but I don’t like whipping up a whole batch and slathering it on this cake because then the richness of the cream cheese takes away from the warm flavours of the cake. Therefore, in my opinion, a cream cheese glaze drizzled over the top works as a good compromise between the two.
This glaze is something I melted and mixed together in the microwave and I love how effortlessly it combines the tangy flavour of cream cheese with the icing sugar to form a thick, flowy glaze that sets firm on the cake.
Cream Cheese Glaze
Ingredients:
Cream Cheese – 1tbsp
Butter – 1tbsp
Icing Sugar – ¼ cup
Method:
Microwave butter in 20-second intervals till melted. Add room temperature cream cheese and mix.
Microwave the mixture for 20-seconds at a time till they combine and there are no lumps.
Sift the icing sugar into the bowl with the cream cheese mix and stir till combined.
Microwave for another 20 seconds until the sugar has dissolved completely.
Let the glaze cool a little bit. If it is too stiff, add a dash of milk. If it’s too runny, add some more sifted icing sugar.
Once cool, transfer to a piping bag or use a fork and drizzle over the cooled carrot cake.
If you try these recipes, let me know what you think! Don't forget to send me a photo on Instagram @mosmusingsblog.
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