Carrot & Orange Bake with Cream Cheese Frosting
In the spirit of The Great British Bake Off coming back onto our TV screens, we thought we'd share this scrumptious Autumnal recipe that goes perfectly with a cup of afternoon tea! This recipe serves 6-8 people and keeps for up to a week in an airtight container, so you can spoil yourself with a little slice every day! Recipe by Penny Zako.
What you will need...
- 5 eggs – separated
- 1 orange – rind grated
- 275g caster sugar
- 480g grated carrot
- 240g ground almonds
- 75g self-raising flour
For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 1 small tub of cream cheese (around 170g)
- 90g butter – softened
- 80g icing sugar
- 1 tsp. lemon juice
How to make it...
- Carefully cut the peel from the orange avoiding cutting off too much pith. Using a sharp knife, cut into thin matchsticks and place into a bowl of ice until needed.Then dry on kitchen paper before use.
- For the pistachio crumb, blitz 100g pistachios in a blender and put to one side.
- Lightly grease the AGA medium cast aluminium frying pan.
- Beat the egg yolks, orange rind and sugar in a bowl until thick and creamy.
- Stir in the carrot, ground almonds and flour.
- Beat the egg whites in a separate bowl to form stiff peaks. Fold into the carrot mixture.
- Pour the batter into the pan, ‘bake’ in the centre of the oven for 60-70 minutes.
- Allow to cool before removing from the pan.
- Combine the ingredients for the cream cheese frosting and spread over or fill the cooled cake.
- Top with the orange peel and pistachio crumb and serve with a passion fruit coulis.
Passion Fruit Coulis
- Combine the pulp of 6 passion fruits with 2 tbsp. of caster sugar and 4 tbsp. of water. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. The sourness of the passion fruit will cut through the richness of the bake and the cream cheese frosting beautifully. You can always add more sugar if it's too tart for your liking.
Layer Cake Tips:
- To make this recipe into more of a sandwich or layer cake, you will need a small knife and a large serrated knife. The layers you’d like to cut should be chilled, as a cold cake is much sturdier than a cake at room temperature.
- Go down to eye-level with the cake and score the entire outside edge of the cake halfway up the side with the small paring knife. You can also use toothpicks as a guide.
- Take the serrated knife and cut through the cake along the indentation made with the paring knife. Take your time cutting to maintain accuracy.
- Use the knife to lift the top layer off of the bottom layer. Your cake should be sturdy enough to lift easily without any buckling or crumbling, however if you’re working with a cake round larger than 8 or 9 inches or cake layers that are extremely thin, you may need to use a little extra care.
- Use the divided layers immediately to build your carrot and orange layer cake filled with cream cheese frosting.
This recipe was part of our online AGA cooking demonstration with AGA specialist, Penny Zako. Our next demonstration is on Thursday 29th September 10-11:30am with Naomi Hansell, to book your place, please email info@edwardsandgodding.co.uk
