Flopsy's Krot Cake

It's fairly 'artisanal' looking but it's tasty!

This is another post, except this time a REAL recipe, for my colleague and dear friend, Flopsy. Flopsy is a big fan of carrot cake (or Krot cake as he refers to it by text message) and sometimes we get a factory-made version which is fairly good in the supermarket on the corner for an afternoon treat. However, it's a little dry and a little commercial tasting, as well as being overly sweet. I happened to mention to Foxy one day that my Sam makes an excellent carrot cake and that it was always one of my favourites as a little girl and from that day on, he pestered me for the recipe until he took it upon himself to write to Sam and ask for it. (My memory is like that of a goldfish so I kept forgetting.) Sam dutifully sent it off, as mothers always do, and Flopsy set about making the cake. The result was rather good for a first attempt, though a little thin because he just did it in one layer, in a small tin, rather than doubling it or doing it in a deep baking tray. The cake itself was yummy, but he made a fatal error with the icing on the top. He used granulated brown sugar to make the buttercream, resulting in what he himself described as a rather 'sandy' topping, which I have never let him live down as it was quite hilarious at the time: a sandy, underweight Krot cake which was nevertheless very tasty.

Ever since this carrot cake episode, he has been asking me to make one and I have been rotten and not delivered on my promises several times over. Finally, this Wednesday, I got around to doing it. This is a cake I actually tried out last week on a friend in muffin form, minus the carrots. The flavours were nice so for Flopsy's cake I decided to base it on that and just add carrots and bake it in cake tins. Worked okay!

Carrot Cake

For the cake:

200g wholemeal flour
200g soft dark brown sugar
200g unsalted butter
1-2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp épices pour pain d'épices (I think in England/U.S. this would be All Spice)
2 tbsp maple syrup
2 big handfuls chopped walnuts
2 big handfuls of sultanas or soft big raisins
2-3 big handfuls of grated carrot
3 medium eggs
1-2 tbsp crème fraîche

For the filling:

100g unsalted butter, softened
150g icing sugar
zest of half a large orange

Beat the orange zest into the butter, slowly adding the icing sugar until you have a thick, creamy filling.

Preheat your oven to 200°C and grease two round 7" cake tins and line them with baking parchment.

In a saucepan and on a gentle hear, melt the butter with the sugar, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon until you have a brown liquid. Add the maple syrup, the walnuts, the sultanas/raisins and the carrots and stir well. Leave to soak for 5-10 minutes. In a large mixing bowl, put the flour, the baking powder, the cinnamon and the spice and mix together. Once the sugar/butter etc mixture has soaked a little, add it to the dry ingredients and stir in well, with a metal spoon. Add the three eggs, stir in, then add the crème fraîche and stir that in too.

Make sure that you have really stirred the mixture well so that the walnuts/sultanas/carrots are evenly distributed throughout. Split the mixture between the two baking tins and sprinkle a little soft brown sugar over the top of each before putting in the oven for 30 minutes.

Leave the cakes to cool on a wire rack. Once cooled, spread the filling over the bottom of one and place the other on top. The cake's ready!