I succumbed to temptation and bought a copy of Dessert Person by Claire Saffitz. I borrowed the book from my local library and I found I wanted to make at least half the recipes in the book so I had no choice but to buy my own copy.
This is the first cake recipe I made from the book and I made it to celebrate a colleague's birthday, one who just adores cream cheese icing. Carrot cake is the perfect vehicle for cream cheese icing and although I have my own favourite carrot cake recipe I thought I'd try the recipe in the book.
Claire's recipes are very well written with loads of instructions and if you follow them to the letter, I'm sure you won't go wrong. There are lots of steps in the recipe but you can make a few things ahead, like the glazed carrot slices (my own addition) and the brown butter cream cheese icing. I certainly made the carrot cake layers the day before I iced them to allow them to cool and set a little.
I took the cake into work and it disappeared in a flash. One workmate declared it the best carrot cake she'd ever eaten and the brown butter cream cheese icing is so good you could seriously eat it by the spoonful.
Here's the recipe for you which makes a 3 layer 16cm cake. If you'd like to make a 9 inch version just double all the ingredients and the baking time should stay the same. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup
and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a
conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to
reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.
Carrot and Pecan Layer Cake
with Browned Butter icing adapted from a Claire Saffitz recipe - makes a 3 layer 16 cm cake Ingredients 225g carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
½ cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1½ tsp finely grated fresh ginger
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
75g pecan pieces, toasted
1¼ cups plain flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp nutmeg
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch salt
½ tsp bicarb soda
2 eggs at room temperature
75g caster sugar
75g cup brown sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
Glazed Carrot Slices
Half a carrot, very thinly sliced
2 tbs maple syrup or maple flavoured syrup
Brown Butter Cream Cheese Icing
113g unsalted butter, at room temperature
250g full fat Philadelphia cream cheese, at room
temperature
1 tsp vanilla paste
Generous pinch of salt
250g sifted icing sugar
Maple glazed carrots/toasted pecans for
decoration
Cake Method
Preheat the oven to 180ºC, conventional.
Grease, flour and line the base of three 16cm cake pans with baking paper,
smoothing to eliminate air bubbles. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, mix together the carrots,
buttermilk, fresh ginger and vanilla. Set aside.
Coarsely chop ⅔ pecans. Set aside. Whiz the
remaining ⅓ of nuts in a food processor to make a coarse meal. Transfer to a
medium bowl. To that bowl add the flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, baking
powder, salt, bicarb soda and whisk to combine. Set aside.
In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk
attachment, combine the eggs and the sugars. Beat first on medium-low to break
up the eggs, then increase to medium-high and beat until the mixture falls off
the whisk and back into the bowl in a slowly dissolving ribbon, about 4
minutes. With the mixer on medium-high, very slowly stream in the oil until the
mixture is smooth and emulsified.
Remove the bowl from the mixer. Add about ⅓ of
the flour mixture and mix with a wooden spoon until flour has almost
disappeared. Scrape in half of the carrot mixture, mixing well until
incorporated and then add the remaining flour in 2 additions, alternating with
the remaining carrot mixture. When the last traces of flour disappear, use a
spatula to scrape down sides and fold the batter several times to make sure
it’s evenly mixed. Then fold in the pecan pieces.
Divide the batter among the three prepared
cake pans. Transfer pans to the oven, placing two on the upper rack and one on
the lower (stagger pans so the pan below doesn’t have another directly above
it). Bake until cakes are springy to the touch in the centre and a cake tester
inserted into the centres comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes, switching and
rotating pans front to back after 10 minutes.
Remove the cakes from the oven and let cool
completely in the pans. Use a small offset spatula or paring knife to loosen
the sides. Transfer to a wire rack and peel off the parchment paper. Reinvert
to another rack, cutting board or plate and allow to completely cool.
Glazed Carrot Slices
Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F (conventional).
Toss sliced carrots in maple syrup then spread out in a single layer on a
baking paper lined baking tray. Bake until maple syrup is caramelized and the carrots
have developed a frilled edge, about 10 minutes. Normally I check the carrots
after 5 minutes, and then turn them over. Let cool completely on baking sheet
before storing the carrot slices in an airtight container.
Icing
Brown the butter in a large covered microwave
safe bowl for 5-6 minutes or until nut brown and fragrant. Cool until
solidified. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the
butter, cream cheese and vanilla paste on medium-high, scraping down the sides
of the bowl occasionally, until the mixture is completely smooth. Turn off the
mixer, add the salt and all of the icing sugar, and cover the bowl with a clean
kitchen towel (to shield you from the icing sugar). Pulse the mixer on low
several times to incorporate the sugar, then remove the towel and beat the
icing on medium-high, scraping down the sides once or twice, until the
icing is light, thick, and very smooth, about 1 minute. The icing is now
ready to use.
Place a single cake layer upside down on a
cake round, a serving plate or cake stand. Using a small offset spatula, spread
about ⅓ cup of the icing across the surface. Place another upside-down layer on
top, centering it and pressing gently to level, then repeat with another ⅓ cup
of the icing. The layers of frosting are thin. Add the final layer of cake then
top with another ⅓ cup of the icing. Refrigerate until the icing has hardened,
about 10 to 15 minutes.
Decorate as desired with remaining icing (I decided to make a naked cake) and some pecan
pieces or maple glazed carrots. As you can see, this makes a delightfully moist cake.
In some other news, I've migrated my email by subscription service to another company, Hopefully it will be a seamless transition.I'll see you again later this week with some more photos from my mini break in Orange.
See you all again soon.
Bye for now,
Jillian
The garden is located outside Oberon so it's a few hours drive from Sydney. When I decided to go to the Blue Mountains, visiting Mayfield was high on my list of things to do. It worked out best to visit the garden on my return journey from Orange.
I always find winter gardens interesting because they can't rely on colour to keep your interest. Instead you need to concentrate on the form of the gardens and an appreciation of lines and shapes.
Mayfield garden is filled with all of those things and more - bridges, walks, grottoes, arches, lakes and ponds.
Flowers may not have provided much colour but the same couldn't be said for the leaves. That copper colour is almost too good to be true.
The copper fountain topped with a Rosella.
Somehow it managed to stay still long enough for me to take a photo.
A rare glimpse of colour.
I loved the Obelisk Pond and took quite a few photos. It was very serene and reminded me a little of Washington Monument in D.C.
The red bridge is clearly an homage to Monet's Garden at Giverny but thankfully without the masses. I'd love to return to Mayfield in the Spring.
I wasn't the only visitor to Mayfield that day but I did arrive quite early and as it's such a large garden, I pretty much had the run of the place.
The water gardens are definitely one of Mayfield's highlights.
Just look at the colours! 
