Rebecca’s Recipe of the Week: Carrot and Cardamom Cake | Canalside Community Food

Did you know that carrot cake originated in Sweden? At least that’s what Swedes say. The ground cardamom certainly gives a Nordic flavour. This is nice for breakfast.

This recipe is based, very loosely, on cake that is apparently served at Stockholm’s Rosendals Trädgård (http://www.rosendalstradgard.se/in-english/), a botanical garden promoting biodynamic gardening and sustainability.

Ingredients
I apologise for the peculiar mixture of mililiters, grams and the like. I’m currently without access to a kitchen scale.

For the Cake
300 ml plain flour—I used spelt
1 tablespoon ground cardamom
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
250 ml rapeseed oil, or other neutral vegetable oil
250 ml sugar—I used an equal mix of dark muscovado and white
3 eggs
zest of one orange
3 large carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
300 ml chopped walnuts and raisins—any proportion. A mixture of different types of raisin (ordinary, sultana, golden) is nice.

For the Icing
150g cream cheese
50 ml sugar—use vanilla sugar if you have any
½ teaspoon vanilla essence if you’re not using vanilla sugar
zest of half a lemon

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 200C or 180C fan-assisted. Grease a 20cm round cake tin.

Combine the dry ingredients (flour, spices, baking soda, baking powder and salt) in a bowl and mix well.

Whisk the oil sugar together in a large mixing bowl, for about 5 minutes. Obviously, use an electric mixer if you have one.

One at a time, add the eggs, whisking well after each addition. Add the orange rind and whisk for another 5 minutes.

Gently fold in the grated carrot, and then fold in the dry ingredients, also gently.

Stir in the nuts and raisins.

Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 35-45 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool in its tin for 10 minutes then turn out on to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

While the cake is cooling, make the icing by beating together the ingredients until smooth. Once the cake is completely cool, you may ice it on the top.