Christmas Carrot Cake Recipe by Little by Little Jewellery
As many of you know Little by Little Jewellery is inspired by the natural beauty found in food. From the Mustard Seed, beautiful Seville Oranges to the humble Apple Pip.
The reason being is that one half of Little by Little Jewellery is Georgina.
Georgina trained at Leith's School of Food and Wine. Her books Take One Pot, Take One Veg and On The Pulse are published by Kyle Books. She continues to work in food styling and recipe creation, and writes a blog, Fuggle Antics. So this month, with it being the Festive season we thought we would share one of Georgina's favourite recipes...
"If you, like me, (Georgina) tend to miss stir up Sunday but feel a sense of duty to provide Christmas cake for the upcoming festivities, there is a solution. Take one solid carrot cake recipe and stir in a whole load of fruit, more than you think, and bake. I'm told the quantities should be roughly 1:1 cake to fruit Cook until just firm, cover with lovely marzipan and the pretty white icing from packets. Decorate. It can be done in an afternoon, with a one year old helping, I can vouch for that."
MAKES A DEEP 20CM ROUND CAKE
PREP TIME – 45 MINUTES + DECORATING
COOK TIME – 1 HOUR TEN MINUTES
INGREDIENTS
225g unsalted butter, softened
225g light brown sugar
4 medium eggs
225g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp allspice
A pinch of salt
200g carrot, coarsely grated
450g dried mixed fruit
FOR THE ICING
2 tbsp Apricot Glaze, warmed
450g Golden Marzipan
450g White, ready to roll icing
Edible pain for decoration
DIRECTIONS
1/ Preheat oven to 170C, fan 150C, gas 5. Butter a 20cm x 8cm deep spring form cake tin and carefully grease with butter and line with baking paper. Set aside
2/ In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir through the grated carrot and dried fruit, mixing until everything is evenly distributed.
3/ Sift the baking powder, cinnamon and flour and salt into a bowl and add half of it to the cake mixture, mix to just combined then add the 2nd half.
4/ Spoon the cake mixture into the tin. Bake for about 1 hour 10 minutes - 1 hour 15 minutes, until the cake is springy to the touch and a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out and leave to cool on a wire rack until completely cold before you ice it.
5/ To marzipan the cake place the cake on a board. Mix the warmed jam with a tbsp. hot water. Brush over the cake. On a surface dusted with icing sugar, roll out the marzipan to a circle just larger than the cake. Lift the marzipan over the cake and ease to fit smoothly around the sides. Trim off any excess. Lightly brush the marzipan with water. On a surface dusted with icing sugar, roll out the white icing to a large circle. Lift the icing over the cake and ease to fit smoothly around the sides. Trim off any excess. Dust your palms with icing sugar and gently 'polish' the surface of the icing with the heel of your hand to smooth out any creases. Paint as you wish with edible paint.