Carrot and Ginger Cake
This recipe is from episode 5 of Bakeology with David Atherton.
This is my ultimate carrot cake.
It’s filled with a warming note of ginger from the cake and the deep, dark caramel. It’s then topped off with a gorgeous brown butter cream cheese icing, pecans and uncrystallised ginger that gives a punch of gingery spice without too much sweetness.
The cake itself is super easy to make and involves nothing more that combining dry and wet ingredients and then folding through the carrots, coconut and pecans. If you’re looking for a carrot cake that is full of flavour but light at the same time, this is the cake for you. You could leave it there and top with some traditional cream cheese icing (simply swap out the brown butter for regular unsalted butter in the recipe below) and you’ll have a crowd pleasing, delicious cake.
But if you have the time, I implore you to try the ginger salted caramel and brown butter cream cheese icing. Neither of these components are particularly tricky, but they do demand your attention (and a little bit of time) to make sure you tread the fine line between darkly delicious and burnt.
You’ll be rewarded with a cake that goes from simply delicious to mind blowing-ly scrumptious.
Watch my how to videos on Instagram:
INGREDIENTS
Carrot and ginger cake
200 g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarb of soda
3 or 4 teaspoons ground ginger
½ teaspoon sea salt flakes
175 g light brown sugar
2 large eggs (at room temperature)
200 millilitres vegetable oil
200 grams carrots (rinsed and coarsely grated)
50g shredded coconut
150 grams pecans (roughly chopped)
Ginger salted caramel
250ml thickened cream
100g caster sugar
50g glucose syrup
½ tsp vanilla
4g table or fine salt
25g butter
3 tsp ground ginger
Brown butter cream cheese icing
250 grams unsalted butter (room temperature)
220 grams icing sugar
200 grams full-fat cream cheese (room temperature)
Pinch of sea salt flakes
To decorate
Reserved chopped pecans from carrot cake
Uncrystallised ginger, cut into small pieces
METHOD
Carrot and ginger cake (watch my how-to video on Instagram)
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Grease and line the base and sides of a 20cm round cake tin with baking paper and set aside.
Grate the carrots and set aside. Roughly chop the pecans and set aside.
Place the flour, baking powder, bicarb soda, ground ginger and salt in a large bowl and mix together with a wooden spoon.
In a separate bowl or large jug, whisk the sugar, eggs and oil together until they are combined.
Add the sugary egg mixture to the flour and gently mix until just combined.
Add the carrots, coconut and most of the pecans (you want to save some for the top of the iced cake) and fold until just combined.
Pour the batter into the prepared tin, smooth the top and bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a cake skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre of the cake.
Leave the cake to rest in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack to cool completely..
Ginger salted caramel (watch my how-to video on Instagram)
Place 125ml cream in a small saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to the boil. Immediately remove from the heat and set aside, with the lid on to help prevent a skin forming.
Place remaining cream in a deep, medium non-stick frypan. Add sugar, glucose syrup, vanilla bean paste and salt. Place the pan over a medium heat and cook, stirring with a heatproof spatula, until sugar dissolves.
Increase heat to medium-high and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes, or until the caramel reaches 140°C on a digital thermometer and is a deep golden brown. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and add the heated cream and the cubed butter. Stir until smooth and well combined. Pour into a small heat-proof bowl and set aside to cool for 10 minutes.
Whisk in the ground ginger a teaspoon at a time and taste. Add more ginger until you have the flavour intensity you’re looking for. I like mine spicy!
Set aside to cool completely.
Brown butter cream cheese icing (watch my how-to video on Instagram)
Dice your butter into rough cubes and put in a medium saucepan. Place on a medium/low heat and stir until the melts.
Stir the butter occasionally as the butter browns – about 10 – 15 minutes. Here are the stages your butter will go through:
The milk solids will start to separate, and you’ll start seeing white dots bubble and simmer to the surface.
The butter will then start to boil and foam. Remember to keep stirring every minute or so.
As the butter continues to brown, the foam will subside and continue to boil. Remember to keep stirring every minute or so.
After a few minutes, the butter will start to foam up again in a more dramatic way than it did before. Browned, caramelised milk solids will start to emerge on the surface of the foam. This is when you immediately take the butter off the heat.
Carefully stir the butter until the foam subsides and then pour into a heat-proof bowl.
Let the butter cool on the bench for 10-15 minutes, and then place into the fridge to cool.
Stir the butter every 30 minutes to distribute the milk solids and encourage the butter to cool evenly.
You want the butter to be cool and the consistency of a thick buttercream, but not fully solidified.
Once the brown butter has cooled and is the right consistency, put the butter, cream cheese, salt and icing sugar in a large bowl and use hand beaters and mix until combined, stopping to scrape the bowl once or twice (you can also use a stand mixer with paddle attachment if you prefer). Be careful not to over mix.
Assembly
Slice the cooled cake in half. Place the base of the cake on a plate or cake stand.
Spoon half of the brown butter cream cheese icing onto the cake. Use a small offset spatula to spread the icing and creating a shallow well in the middle, with walls around the edge of about 1.5 – 2 cm
Pour the ginger salted caramel into the well and spread evenly. If your caramel is a bit too firm to spread easily, place the bowl in the microwave for 5-10 seconds and stir to loosen the caramel.
Place the top layer of the cake on top of the filling. Place the remaining icing on the top of the cake and gently spread to the edges. I like to keep the icing on the top quite textural, so don’t stress too much about smoothing the icing.
Top with the reserved pecans and chopped uncrystallised ginger, and enjoy!
Serve this cake on the day, or place in the fridge overnight (in a sealed container) to let the flavours develop even more. This cakes keeps well in the fridge for up to 5 days.
