After travelling for such a long time, my style of cooking has changed a lot! One of the most significant changes is that we eat more often vegetarian dishes. To find new and vegetarian recipes I discovered the books of Ottolenghi. Yotam Ottolengi is an Israeli-born british chef, recipe writer and restaurant owner. His food is absolutely delicious and his book Plenty contains only vegetarian options. His book “Ottolenghi, The Cookbook” has a wider range of recipes and has a very nice baking-chapter as well. This carrot cake recipe is from that book.
For me it was the first time I made a carrot cake, because it sounded odd… vegetables in a cake. But everybody was raving about it, so I decided this: If I want to make a carrot cake, it needs to be the Ottolenghi one! And this carrot cake with walnuts is an absolute winner. Those spices work perfectly in this cake and the cream cheese icing is just how it should be, creamy and sweet.
Recipe: Carrot cake with walnuts
Ingredients
Cake
160 gr flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp bakingsoda
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp clove (powder)
1 egg
1 egg yolk
200 gr sunflower oil
270 gr sugar
50 gr walnuts, chopped
50 gr desiccated coconut
135 gr carrot, roughly grated
2 eggwhites
a pinch of salt
Icing
175 gr cream cheese, room temperature
70 gr butter, room temperature
35 gr icingsugar
25 gr honey
30 gr walnuts, chopped and lightly toasted
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease a tin and use some grease proof paper on the bottom and the sides.
- Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder and the spices.
- Whisk the egg and egg yolk.
- Mix the oil with the suger for 1 minute on medium speed.
- On low speed add the eggs
- Stir in the coconut, walnuts and carrot, followed by the flour mixture. Don’t overmix it, just until it’s combined.
- Whip the egg whites until firm peaks and fold them into the batter.
- Pour the batter into the prepared thin.
- Bake this carrot cake with walnuts for 60 minutes in the preheated oven until golden and a skewer comes out clean.
- Let it cool completely in the tin.
For the icing
- Mix the cream cheese until smooth; set aside
- In an other bowl cream the butter with the icing sugar and the honey until white and fluffy.
- Fold in the cream cheese.
- Put the icing on top of the cake and decorate it with the toasted walnuts
- 160 gr flour
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp bakingsoda
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ¼ tsp clove (powder)
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 200 gr sunflower oil
- 270 gr sugar
- 50 gr walnuts, chopped
- 50 gr desiccated coconut
- 135 gr carrot, roughly grated
- 2 eggwhites
- a pinch of salt
- 175 gr cream cheese, room temperature
- 70 gr butter, room temperature
- 35 gr icingsugar
- 25 gr honey
- 30 gr walnuts, chopped and lightly toasted
- Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease a tin and use some grease proof paper on the bottom and the sides.
- Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder and the spices.
- Whisk the egg and egg yolk.
- Mix the oil with the suger for 1 minute on medium speed.
- On low speed add the eggs
- Stir in the coconut, walnuts and carrot, followed by the flour mixture. Don't overmix it, just until it's combined.
- Whip the egg whites until firm peaks and fold them into the batter.
- Pour the batter into the prepared thin.
- Bake for 60 minutes in the preheated oven until golden and a skewer comes out clean.
- Let it cool completely in the tin.
- Mix the cream cheese until smooth; set aside
- In an other bowl cream the butter with the icing sugar and the honey until white and fluffy.
- Fold in the cream cheese.
- Put the icing on top of the cake and decorate it with the toasted walnuts
