Carrot Cake with lime & walnuts with an orange & mascarpone frosting
This fabulous cake was very kindly shared by Rosemary Guthrie of Freycob Cakes, it looks spectacular and makes the most devine birthday cake!
INGREDIENTS
200ml Farringtons Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil
250g Light soft brown sugar
3 eggs, separated
150g Carrots, grated
10ml (2tbs) Lime juice
100g Walnuts, chopped, plus a few halves for decoration
250g Self Raising flour
2.5ml (1/2 tsp) Bicarbonate of Soda
5ml (1tsp) Baking powder
5ml (1tsp) Ground Cinnamon
5ml (1tsp) Ground Nutmeg
250g Mascarpone cheese
200g Philadelphia cheese
150g Icing sugar
1 Orange, zested
METHOD
1. Preheat your oven to 180C.
2. Grease & line the base of 2 x 20cm (8″) round tins.
3. Whisk the oil sugar & egg yolks together until smooth.
4. Add the grated carrot, lime juice & chopped walnuts. Mix thoroughly.
5. Sieve the flour, bi-carbonate of soda, baking powder, cinnamon & nutmeg together.
6. Fold the flour mix into the oil & egg mix until thoroughly combined.
7. Whisk the egg whites until stiff.
8. GENTLY fold the egg whites into the flour & oil mixture, being careful not to knock the air out of it.
9. Divide between your two tins.
10. Place on the centre shelf of your oven for 40-45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean & the cake has started to come away from the sides of the tin.
11. Leave to cool in the tins before turning out onto wire racks to cool completely.
12. Whisk together the mascarpone cheese, Philadelphia cheese, icing sugar and orange zest until thoroughly combined.
13. When the cakes are cool sandwich together with 1/3 of the frosting.
14. Smooth the remaining 2/3 of the frosting over the top & sides of the cake.
15. Decorate with halved walnuts as desired.
16. Keep cool due to the cheese frosting.
By separating the eggs and folding in the whisked egg whites, it will give you a lighter, larger variation on a normal carrot cake.
The Farrington cold pressed rapeseed oil is produced locally to me in Northamptonshire & adds the most amazing taste, as well as being healthy (NOTE: I was not sponsored by, or provided with a sample of Farrington Cold Pressed Oil. The opinion stated is purely my own and is totally unbiased towards them).
The lime juice can be changed to lemon juice if you wish.
Walnuts are optional, both in the cake and also as decoration.
