CARROT CAKE & CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

Baking majorly deals with sugars, cream, all purpose flour and many more which are high in carbs, fat and gluten. So my health consciousness tries to compensate, and I indulge in baking guilt free cakes. One of those is Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, a semi guilt free cake to be precise😛.

To make it slightly guilt free cake, I used brown sugar and jaggery instead of white sugar and replaced all purpose flour with whole wheat flour.

Carrot cake:

In a bowl sift in whole-wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. I like to sift the flour thrice when using whole wheat flour.

In another bowl, mix thick curd, brown sugar and jaggery. I always prefer set curd or market made curd over homemade curd. If I can't have access to ready curd, I will hung the homemade curd to get thick consistency.

Once brown sugar and jaggery is dissolved completely, add in the oil while continuously whisking.

Once incorporated well, fold in the flour into wet mixture in batches and do not over mix it. Over mixing will activates gluten and cake will turn out super dense. Cake baking doesn't need gluten.

Add few tablespoons of milk if you find the batter is very thick. Add in the vanilla essence or extract and grated carrot and mix until it is incorporated well.

Some like to add ground cinnamon and few other spices. I haven't added any here. You can add if you wish to. You may add this while you add the grated carrot.

Grease a 6 inch tin and dust with flour. Pour in the batter and bake the cake in preheated oven at 180 deg for 35-40 min or until the skewer comes out clean. Place the cake tin in middle rack with both the rods and fan turned on.

Cream cheese frosting:

For cream cheese frosting, I followed @biggerbolderbaking recipe. You will just need 1/4th of the recipe to decorate the cake.

Just slather in a dollop of cream cheese and spread it using offset spatula. You need not be very careful about how you spread. Let it be rustic with imperfections.

Carrot roses:

Pick a carrot which isn't bent in between. Peel off the skin using a vegetable peeler.

Peel off the carrot and make around 15 of them. Soak them in hot boiled water with 5-6 drops of lemon juice for about 3-5 min.

Fish them out and they are slightly soft now to roll.

Roll the carrot peels in spiral shape (2 dimensional ) to make carrot roses.

Decorate the cake with these beautiful carrot roses. Add in some mint leaves to bring out the vibrant colours.

Recipe:

Serves 6 people

Prep time : 1 hour

Baking time : 40 min

Total time : 1 hour 40 min

Ingredients:

Carrot cake:

Whole wheat flour - 130g or 1 cup levelled

Baking powder - 1 tsp

Baking soda - 1/2 tsp

Salt - 1/4 tsp

Curd - 150g

Brown sugar - 100g

Jaggery - 2 tbsp or 30g

Oil - 1/4 cup or 30 ml

Vanilla essence - 1 tsp optional

Milk - 2 tbsp

Grated carrot - 3/4 cup

Cream cheese frosting:

Follow @biggerbolderbaking for the recipe and ingredients.

Just make 1/4th of the recipe.

Carrot roses:

Carrot - 1 large

Lemon juice - 5-6 drops

Water - 2 cups

Method:

Carrot cake:

• Sift in flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

• In a bowl, add curd, brown sugar and jaggery. Whisk it until sugar and jaggery is dissolved.

• While whisking, add in the oil.

• Add the dry mixture in batches.

• Add milk, vanilla essence and grated carrot.

• Pour in the batter in a 6 inch greased and dusted tin. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 deg for 35-40 min or skewer comes out clean.

Carrot roses:

• Boil water in a saucepan and take it off the flame. Add 5-6 drops of lemon juice to it.

• Peel the carrot skin and make around 15 carrot peels.

• Soak the carrot peels in boiled hot water for 3-5 min.

• Fish them out and roll them.

Assembling the cake:

• Once the cake is cooled down, add in a dollop of cream cheese frosting on top.

• Spread frosting using offset spatula.

• Arrange the carrot roses as you wish. Add in some mint leaves too.