What do you do when you've made a bit of a botched job at smoothing down the icing on the sides of your cake? Cover it in a sugary, pastel rainbow!
Pastel rainbows, however, don't cover up structural problems. I was a bit lazy with levelling my layers so the cake ended up somewhat freeform. Not to matter though, I was fairly confident I was onto a winner flavour wise as the batter tasted good.
The finished cake was very tasty indeed. Hurrah!
I have been wanting to try out the Hummingbird Bakery's carrot cake recipe for years and since my sister in law's only stipulation for her birthday cake this year was "cream cheese icing" I thought now was as good a time as any.
I'm not sure if I love it quite as much as their Hummingbird layer cake, but that really is just personal preference. It's a very satisfying, well spiced carrot cake and I'd definitely bake it again. My only regret is not having a dusting of cinnamon on top, which is what I usually do with carrot cakes, but I feared it would clash with the sprinkles!
Triple layer carrot cake
Recipe from Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook
300g soft light brown sugar
3 large eggs
300ml sunflower oil
300g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
300g carrots, peeled and grated
100g walnuts (I used pecans instead) chopped
cream cheese icing:
600g icing sugar
100g butter, softened (I use slightly salted)
250g full fat cream cheese
I also added 1/2tsp vanilla bean paste for extra flavour
Preheat the oven to 170C/150C Fan/325F/Gas 3. Grease and line 3 round 20cm (8 inch) cake tins. Beat together the sugar, eggs and oil until well combined. In a separate bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and ginger and slowly add to the egg mixture until fully combined. Stir in the grated carrots and chopped nuts until evenly dispersed then divide the mixture between the cake tins. Bake for 20-25mins until well risen, firm to touch and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire cooling rack.
For the icing, combine the butter and icing sugar. I find this easier to start off by hand with a spoon as the mixer just makes massive dust clouds! Once combined, add the cream cheese icing in one go and mix together (by mixer) for 5 minutes until the mixture is light and very fluffy. Use to generously fill and cover the cooled cake. I had enough icing left over to pipe a simple star border around the top of the cake.
For the pastel border I patted the sprinkles into the cake in their colour rows, working from the bottom up. I used my right hand to press them on and held my left hand underneath, with the edge of my palm lightly touching the side of the cake to catch and press in any falling sprinkles. It was quite a messy procedure (and there's probably a better way of doing it!) so I recommend keeping a baking tray underneath where you're working.