Carrot Cake

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 180C/350F Gas mark 4
• Grease and line 2 x 18cm sandwich tins.
• Using a stand mixer or large bowl and hand mixer, place in the melted butter, sugar and eggs, and whisk them until the mixture has thickened to twice the amount
• In a separate container sieve together the flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and bicarb. Add the orange zest, raisins, carrot and walnuts and gently combine the dry ingredients with the wet mixture by folding them in.
• Be as gentle as possible, you don’t want to knock the mixture back.
• Divide the mixture between the tins. Bake for about 30/40 minutes until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean
• Leave to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before turning out to cool off completely
• For the icing
• Beat together the mascarpone cheese, icing sugar and lemon juice and zest until nice and creamy.
• Place in the refrigerator until the cakes are ready to be finished.
• Once the cakes are cool enough, top one with half the icing, and place the other cake on top. Ice the top, and decorate with decorative carrots.
• For the Almond Paste
• Combine the ground almonds, icing sugar and almond extract together using a food mixer or a beater in a stand mixer.
• Gradually add the minimal amount of water at a time to form a thick pliable paste.
• Be careful not to add to much water that the paste is too wet, add more icing sugar if this happens.
• Roll out the paste into a cylindrical shape and wrap in clingfilm and place in the refrigerator to rest for 30 minutes
• For the Decorative Carrots
• Take about ¼ of the marzipan/almond paste and flatten out a little, add 2/3 drops of orange food colouring and knead the paste until it is totally combined with the colouring,( you may want to use thin latex gloves to save your hands getting coloured) roll out a length about the thickness of your finger, and cut into 10, ½” lengths.
• Shape each piece into the shape of a carrot, thick at the top decreasing to thinner at the bottom.
• For the green leafy part of the carrot, take a smaller piece of marzipan and colour with green food colour in the same way as above.
• cut off 10 small pieces and shapen them into smaller versions of the carrot, attach them to the thick end of the carrot using corn syrup, glucose or something similar.
• Once you have attached the green part to the carrot flatten the thick end of the green and make 3 incisions and slightly spread them.
• Place each carrot evenly apart to signify 10 portions
• Any unused marzipan or almond paste can be wrapped in clingfilm and stored in the fridge for later use