Easter baking recipe for 10 - 12 people, takes only 10 mins; recipe has vegetable oil, natural yogurt, large eggs, vanilla extract, self-raising flour, light muscovado sugar, ground cinnamon, nutmeg, carrots, sultanas, pistachios, salted butter, icing sugar, cream cheese, fondant icing and food colouring.
Carrot patch cake
Course: Easter baking
Servings
10 - 12
servings
Prep time
25 mins
Ingredients
- Vegetable Oil: 175ml vegetable oil, plus extra for the tin
- Natural Yogurt: 75g natural yogurt
- Nutmeg: 1/4 fresh nutmeg, finely grated
- Ground Cinnamon: 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- Self Raising Flour: 200g self-raising flour
- Vanilla Extract: 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Cream Cheese: 100g full-fat cream cheese
- Icing Sugar: 200g icing sugar
- Light Muscovado Sugar: 250g light muscovado sugar
- Carrots: 200g carrots (about three), grated
- Salted Butter: 100g slightly salted butter, softened
- Sultanas: 100g sultanas or raisins
- Large Eggs: 3 large eggs
- Food Colouring: orange food colouring
- Fondant Icing: 100g fondant icing or marzipan
- Pistachios: 100g pistachios, finely chopped (or slivered if you can get them)
Directions
- Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Oil and line a 900g loaf tin with baking parchment.Whiskthe oil, yogurt, eggs and vanilla in a jug. Mix the flour, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg with a good pinch of salt in a bowl. Squeeze any lumps of sugar through your fingers, shaking the bowl a few times to bring the lumps to the surface.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry, along with the carrots, raisins and half the pistachios. Mix well to combine, then scrape into the tin. Bake for 1 hr 10 mins or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. If any wet mixture clings to the skewer, return to the oven for 5 mins, then check again. Leave to cool in the tin.
- To make the icing, beat the butter and sugar together until smooth. Add half the cream cheese and beat again, then add the rest (adding it bit by bit prevents the icing from splitting). Remove the cake from the tin and spread the icing thickly on top. Scatter with some of the remaining pistachios. Dye the fondant or marzipan orange by kneading in a drop of food colouring. Roll into little carrot shapes, then use a skewer to make indentations and poke a few pistachios in to look like fronds. Top the cake with the carrots, then serve.Will keep in the fridge for up to five days (eat at room temperature).