How to make a carrot cake

Today is IH London Finance Manager Joao's birthday. We've been celebrating with a huge carrot cake made by Mat in the Sales Team.

Carrot cake is made with grated carrots mixed with cake batter. The carrot softens as the cake cooks, making it very soft and moist. The cake doesn't taste like carrots!

A little bit of carrot cake history

Carrots have been used in sweet cakes since medieval times when sweeteners were rare and expensive. Carrots - which naturally contain a lot of sugar - were much easier to get and were used to make desserts.

Carrot cake is originally thought to have come from Scotland. It became popular again in Britain during the Second World War because of sugar rationing.

Carrot cakes started appearing in cafes in America in the 1960s. They were a novelty item at first, but people liked them so much that carrot cake became a standard dessert.

How to make your own carrot cake

This recipe makes one 7 inch (18 cm) cake with cream cheese icing on the top of the cake only.

(The cake in the picture consists of two 9” cakes and two 7” cakes sandwiched together and balanced on top of each other! To make this two-tier cake you need five times the cake recipe, 10 times the cream cheese recipe, and 2 times the vanilla butter icing recipe below.)



For the cake:

150g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
150g soft dark brown sugar
250g grated carrot
150ml corn oil
2 eggs (beaten)
1 tsp vanilla essence

For the cream cheese icing:

50g butter (room temperature)
75g full-fat cream cheese (you can use half fat, but not fat free)
½ tsp vanilla essence
100g icing sugar

For the vanilla butter icing:

250g icing sugar
115g softened butter
1 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla essence

Method

Cake:

1) Preheat the oven to Gas 4 or 180C
2) Grease and line a 7” cake tin
3) Sieve the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and cinnamon into a mixing bowl. Add the caster sugar and the carrots and mix together.
4) Beat the eggs and add them to the mix along with the oil.
5) The mixture will look like a thick batter – pour this into the tin and cook in the middle of the oven for 35-40 minutes or until the cake is firm when pressed
6) Leave to cool

Cream cheese icing:

1) Mix the cream cheese with the butter until smooth.
2) Add the milk and vanilla essence
3) Sieve the icing sugar into the mixture beating with and electric whisk
4) Once the cake is cool spread the mixture over the top of the cake

Vanilla butter icing:

1) Sieve the icing sugar into the butter and mix with an electric whisk.
2) When ingredients start to come together, add the milk and the essence
3) Mix until smooth
4) Add any colouring that you may want
5) Decorate the cake using a piping bag.

Valentine's Day Cupcakes

When Sales Manager Mat arrived this morning with four boxes of handmade cupcakes, we couldn't resist sharing the pictures (and the recipe!)

Choose from chocolate 'mud' cupcakes, or vanilla and cherry cupcakes, or make both! We think they make an excellent Valentine's Day gift to impress your loved one...

Ingredients:
(makes approximately 24 cupcakes)

200g Softened butter
200g Self raising flour, sieved
200g Caster sugar
4 eggs

For vanilla and cherry cupcakes:
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
50g chopped Glace cherries

For chocolate 'mud' cupcakes:
2 tablespoons cocoa powder

Equipment:

You need cupcake cases – they are a little bigger than fairy cake cases

Method:

• Preheat your oven to Gas 5 180C
• Mix sugar and butter together by hand or with a mixer until light and fluffy.
• Beat the eggs and add half to the sugar and butter. Add half the flour and mix
• Add the rest of the eggs and the rest of flour and mix until all the ingredients have combined.
• For cherry and vanilla cupcakes: Add the vanilla essence and then around 50 grams of chopped glace cherrys and mix.
• For chocolate 'mud' cupcakes: Add 2 the cocoa powder. You can also replace the cherries with chocolate drops, raisins etc.)
• Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases and place in the centre of the oven. Cook for 10- 15 minutes or until the cake have risen and are springy to the touch.
• Remove the cakes from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.
  

For the Butter Icing (enough for 12 cakes)
240g Icing sugar (sieved)
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla essence (you can use different flavourings)
2 tablespoons Milk 125g Softened butter

You will need a whisk or a mixer to make the icing properly.
Method:

• Roughly stir the icing sugar and the softened butter together before using an electric mixer. If you don’t do this, you will find yourself covered in a cloud of icing dust the moment you switch your mixer on!
• Once the mixture starts to come together, add the milk and the flavouring and whisk until smooth.
• For chocolate icing add 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder. You can also add colourings. The best thing to do is make 3 or 4 amounts of butter icing so you can use different colours and flavours for each one.

Decorating the cupcakes:

Before decorating make all your butter icing and place in piping bags. (Mat used disposable bags that you can buy from kitchen shops or online at Lakeland.)

You can then use anything you like to decorate your cupcakes with. Try sweets, silver balls, chocolate drops, cherries or sprinkles. Go crazy!

Recipe of the Month - an easy one!

Hi there - I'm Mat and I work in the Sales and Marketing Department at IH London. I've been here for quite some time, 11 years! and in that time I have clocked up quite a few air miles visiting countries and promoting the school.

There is far more to learning about a culture than studying its language. As I enjoy cooking and get to travel regularly to all sorts of places, I often like to entertain my friends and have themed events where I cook a particular country's food.

I had the opportunity to interview one of our Arabic teachers some years ago and this led me to looking into the food that is eaten in some Arabic speaking countries. The other weekend I entertained 9 friends to a Moroccan Day. Apart from turning my dining room into a tent and filling it with north African lamps and cushions, I had to prepare an array of meals from Hummus and breads, to Lamb and Apricot Tagines.

The great thing about studying in a large city like London, is that you can buy almost any ingredients in the capital. A great time was had by all, but more importantly, this is an excellent way to explore the language and culture of other nationalities and have fun whilst doing it.

My next event is going to be Japanese as I travel there in April – but you could easily do any nationality – even English!

If you fancy "having a bash" (having a go) at making Hummus – its really easy and delicious

(recipe for 4 people)

• 200g/7oz canned chickpeas
• 2 tbsp lemon juice or more
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tbsp tahini
• 3 tbsp water
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp paprika or Cayenne pepper

Put all ingredients (except paprika or Cayenne) into a food processor and blend until smooth. Put into a bowl and sprinkle with cayenne or paprika and a little olive oil – grab a pita bread and enjoy!