Ottolenghi's Carrot Cake

Lovely Wife is a very big fan of this recipe which comes direct from the renowned delicatessen Ottolenghi’s on Ledbury Road in London’s Notting Hill. This gets the very big thumbs up from the Jumeirah Jane crowd!


You will need:

200g self raising flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
3 large eggs
250g sunflower oil
350g caster sugar
60g chopped walnuts
60g desiccated coconut
175g roughly grated carrot
Salt

For the frosting:

225g cream cheese
95g soft butter
50g icing sugar
1½ tbsp maple syrup
40g walnuts, chopped and lightly toasted


And then you need to:


Preheat the oven to 170C/325F and get your hands on a 24cm loosed based cake tin, lightly greased and the bottom lined with baking parchment.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarb and spices.

Separate 2 of the eggs and lightly whisk together the two yolks with the 1 whole egg. Set the 2 egg whites to one side.

Using a mixer or electric hand whisk, beat together the oil and sugar for about 1 minute. Continue to beat on a low speed and slowly add the egg yolk/egg mixture. Add the walnuts, coconut, carrot and then the sifted dry ingredients. Be careful not to over mix.

Now transfer the mixture into another large bowl. Thoroughly wash and dry the original bowl before adding the egg whites along with a pinch of salt.

Then whisk the egg whites on a high speed until they form firm peaks.

Next, gently fold the egg whites into the carrot mixture in 3 additions. Again, be careful not to over mix; it is fine to have streaks of white remaining in the mixture.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 1-11/4 hours, or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre. If the cake starts going dark before the middle is cooked, cover the top of it with kitchen foil.

Let the cake cool completely, then remove from the tin. You can freeze the cake at this stage, if you like. Just wrap it in a double layer of parchment paper and put it in a polythene freezer bag.

For the frosting, beat the cream cheese in the mixer (or with the electric hand whisk) until light and smooth. Then remove it to another bowl. Beat the butter, icing sugar and maple syrup in the mixer (or with electric hand whisk) until light and airy.

Fold together the cheese and butter mixture. Finally, spread the frosting on top of the cake and sprinkle with the chopped, toasted walnuts.