Hairy Bikers Carrot Cake

Twelve squares come out of one 20cm tin, because Hairy Bikers carrot cake is a tray bake and not a layer cake. The recipe sits in British Classics, and each square works out at roughly 490 calories over a total of 2 hours 3 minutes.

“A good old British tray bake that’s dead easy to put together” is how Si and Dave sum it up in British Classics. What makes it unusual is the fat, since 175ml of sunflower oil goes in where most carrot cakes reach for butter.

The icing is where it can still go wrong though, since icing it warm makes the frosting slide off with the pecans. That is why the icing chills for half an hour while the cake cools right down on a rack.

Hairy Bikers Carrot Cake Recipe

Author: Alex Saidani Cooking Method:Baking Cuisine:British Courses:Snack

Difficulty:BeginnerPrep time: 25 minutesCook time: 38 minutesRest time:1 hour Total time:2 hours 3 minutesServings:12 servingsCalories:490 kcal Best Season:Summer

Description

Sultanas and pecans go into the flour bowl rather than being folded in later, so they end up evenly spread. Eggs, oil and sugar are whisked in a second bowl, the two are brought together, and grated carrot goes in last. The frosting is beaten with orange juice and zest, then chilled before it is spread.

Ingredients

For the Cake:

• 200g self-raising flour
• 75g sultanas
• 75g pecans, broken into rough pieces
• Grated zest of ½ orange
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ whole nutmeg, finely grated
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• Pinch of fine sea salt
• 3 eggs
• 175ml sunflower oil, plus extra for greasing
• 175g soft light brown sugar
• 200g carrots, grated

For the Cream Cheese Icing:

• 100g icing sugar
• 100g unsalted butter, softened
• 1 tsp fresh orange juice
• 200g full-fat cream cheese
• Grated zest of ½ orange
• 25g pecan nuts, roughly broken

Instructions

1. Prepare the tin: Heat the oven to 180°C/Fan 160°C/Gas 4, then grease a 20cm square loose-bottomed cake tin and line it with baking paper.
2. Mix the dry ingredients: Put the flour, sultanas, pecans, orange zest, cinnamon, grated nutmeg, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a large bowl and mix until well combined.
3. Whisk the wet ingredients: Beat the eggs in a separate bowl until smooth, then add the sunflower oil and sugar and whisk until well combined.
4. Bring it together: Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and beat in the wet ingredients until smooth, then stir in the grated carrots.
5. Bake it: Pour the mixture into the tin and smooth the surface, then bake in the centre of the oven for 35 to 40 minutes. It is done when it is well risen, springy to the touch and a skewer comes out of the centre clean.
6. Cool it completely: Leave the cake in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack and let it cool all the way down.
7. Make the icing: Sift the icing sugar into a large bowl, add the butter and orange juice and beat with a wooden spoon until light and creamy. Add the cream cheese and orange zest and beat until smooth, then cover and chill for 30 minutes until firm enough to spread.
8. Ice and cut: Spread the icing over the cold cake, sprinkle with the pecans and cut into 12 pieces.

FAQs

Oil in a cake, does that not make it greasy?

Not at 175ml against 200g of flour, no. What it does is keep the crumb wet, because oil stays liquid at room temperature while butter sets solid as a cake cools. That is the reason a buttery sponge firms up overnight and this one does not.

There is a second benefit that shows up while you are making it. Nothing needs creaming, so the whole cake is two bowls and a whisk. Banana and pineapple cake works on the identical principle with the identical 175ml of oil, and finishes with a cream cheese icing as well.

Nobody grates half a nutmeg, can I use ground?

Half a whole one is what the recipe asks for and it is more than most bakes take. Grating it yourself matters more than the quantity does, because a nutmeg grated on the spot is far gentler than the same weight of powder that has been sitting open in a cupboard.

Using ground is fine if that is what you have. Start at half a teaspoon rather than trying to match the weight, and taste the raw batter on a teaspoon before it goes in the tin. Nutmeg turns bitter rather than simply strong when there is too much of it, and there is no fixing it afterwards.

The frosting will not thicken

Back in the fridge with it. Cream cheese icing sets as it chills and the recipe allows 30 minutes for precisely this, so if it is still loose it has not had long enough.

If an hour has passed and it is still sliding about, check the tub. The recipe specifies full-fat and the reduced-fat versions hold far more water, which never firms up however long you leave it. Resist the urge to beat in extra icing sugar, since that only leaves you with frosting that is runny and sickly rather than just runny.

Tray bake or layer cake, which did they intend?

Tray bake, and deliberately so. The headnote says they took a classic and turned it into one, which is why there is a single square tin and one layer of frosting rather than a filled sandwich.

Nothing stops you doing it the other way. Split the mixture between two 20cm sandwich tins the way coffee and walnut cake does, cut the bake to around 25 minutes and make double the icing so there is enough to fill and cover. You will need a bigger tub of cream cheese and about an hour more of your evening.

A bag of carrots is 1kg and this needs 200g

Which leaves 800g doing nothing, so it is worth having a plan. Grate only what you need and keep the rest whole, because grated carrot dries out within a day.

Carrot and coriander soup takes a full kilogram and, as it happens, uses grated orange zest too, so the two recipes overlap on more than the obvious. It also freezes in portions, which this cake will not once the cream cheese is on it.