Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

A small weekend indulgence both in the baking and eating, of that carrot cake.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro, Sweden 2015

I wanted a moist cake that for the first time in a long time, was not double chocolate. As autumn rolls around, harvests of various root vegetables are abundant, which makes it a perfect opportunity to bake something out of them. Carrot cake, with a warm mixture of ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg seemed to be the perfect autumn harvest crave and I set about in my weekend indulgence of baking one.

While it seems that many might consider no cream cheese frosting atop a carrot cake as a loss of the culinary experience of eating that cake, my personal preference has often been to skip the frosting, else reduce the overall portion of sugar in any given recipe.

I made several small changes to the standard carrot cake recipe where I used butter instead of cooking oil, left out any kind of nuts, used fresh grated ginger, and chose to use muscovado sugar in complement to the mixture of warm spices.

Once out of the oven, I topped this dark, sweet and richly spiced cake with one of my favourite things, plain whipped cream. A quick grating of some lemon zest over the whipped cream and it was good to be enjoyed with a favourite drink on an autumn weekend.

Cheryl Marie Cordeiro, carrot cake

About 200g of carrots with a touch of lemon zest, to go into the batter.

Cheryl Marie Cordeiro, carrot cake

Melted butter, whisked with muscovado sugar.

Cheryl Marie Cordeiro, carrot cake

Mixing dry and wet ingredients.

Cheryl Marie Cordeiro, carrot cake making

Cheryl Marie Cordeiro, carrot cake

Ready for the evening sit, with coffee and a choice of a favourite liquor.