A rather Pleasing Carrot Cake with lime mascarpone icing

This carrot cake is an exceedingly good cake made all the more pleasing by the twist of lime mascarpone icing. It’s delicious, it works and it’s better than any other carrot cake I’ve tried. I would normally bake this in a square or round cake tin, but for the picture I used a lovely old loaf tin and it came out looking gorgeous.

What will You need? Okay… nothing too much- I hope 🙂

Ingredients

• 250g unsalted butter, softened
• 250g light brown soft sugar
• 5 large eggs, preferably free-range or organic, separated
• zest and juice of 1 orange
• 170g self-raising flour, sifted
• 1 slightly heaped teaspoon baking powder
• 100g ground almonds
• 100g shelled walnuts, chopped, plus a handful for serving
• 1 heaped teaspoon ground cinnamon
• a pinch of ground cloves
• a pinch of ground nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• 250g carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
sea salt

for the lime mascarpone icing:
• 100g mascarpone cheese
• 200g full-fat cream cheese
• 85g icing sugar, sifted
• zest and juice of 2 limes

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4. Grease and line a 22cm square cake tin or a round equivalent with greaseproof paper. Beat the butter and sugar together by hand or in a food processor until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks one by one, and add the orange zest and juice. Stir in the sifted flour and baking powder, and add the ground almonds, walnuts, spices and grated carrot and mix together well.

: Carrot Cake in the pan. Traditionally Carrot Cake has ground almonds but some people like without. You make it your own like the above picture… Me, I love almonds and I enjoy them best on carrot cake.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff, then gently fold them into the cake mix. Scoop the mixture into the prepared cake tin and cook in the preheated oven for about 50 minutes until golden and risen. You can check to see if the cake is cooked by poking a cocktail stick into it. Remove it after 5 seconds and it if comes out clean the cake is cooked; if slightly sticky it needs a bit longer, so put it back in the oven. Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn it out on to a rack and leave for at least an hour.

Mix all the icing ingredients together and spread generously over the top of the cake. Finish off with a sprinkling of chopped walnuts

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Another special recipe to add to your BBQ – GOSH!!! Caesar Salad Bites & OUCH! Killer Mexican Barbecued Corn on the Cob.

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