One of my friends made a gorgeous cake, her very sweet partner said that it was the Grandfather of all cakes, the First Cake etc so I was inclined to try the recipe out as it was a carrot cake {a type of cake of which I am particularly fond, when done well}.
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| happily this recipe only called for one carrot's worth of gratings |
It was a recipe from Ottolenghi. I have a book of his called 'Plenty,' which is full of delightful recipes. I find he used spices that I don't usually use which is great because it opens up many different flavours. I feel like it's easy to use the same old spices but quite fun to use sumac, za'atar, cumin etc. Anyway this carrot cake---> http://www.ottolenghi.co.uk/recipes/carrot-cake was pretty darn delicious. It has a really lovely moist crumb with a pleasant crunch to the outer part of the cake. The flavours were warm and rich but not too much. A cake I could probably eat for breakfast. On an indulgent day.
I always struggle to follow a recipe exactly but with this one I made only a few little tweaks. I used ginger and cardamom powder instead of cinnamon and clove, I added a little lime rind to the icing and for the nut topping I used about 20g each of pistachio and walnut {both lightly toasted} and a little sprinkling of dried {edible} rose petals. We had it for a little afternoon treaty with some earl grey. I was very happy with how it all came together. I realise that my favourite cakes are ones that have whipped-into-stiff-peak egg whites folded into the batter for the last step. It seems to give that lovely lightness to the crumb, but then it's also nicely dense. Oh Cake, I adore you.
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| rose, pistachio and walnut. I like the number three. |
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| lime rind. absolutely worth grating |
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| flowers and cake for afternoon tea |
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| our tame cockatoo. he seemed to be fond of the cake also. |
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