Carrot, orange and ginger cake

How to make a carrot and orange cake

The first time I tried this carrot cake it blew me away. I had to ask for the recipe and try it at home, it seemed strange to me the subject of the carrot in a sponge cake.

To my surprise, it gives it a delicious sweet flavor and its color, precious. It is a simple recipe and you did not spend a day at home, they left me a piece for breakfast.

If you want to prepare it for a special occasion I advise you to do the cheese and orange frosting, it will give it a 10 point appearance and much more flavor.

The history of carrot desserts is quite curious. By the middle of the century, the popularity of carrot cake had jumped from England to America.

During World War II, there is said to have been an excess of canned carrots in the US, and an entrepreneur named George C. Page hired bakers to find uses for carrot cans in order to create demand for the product.

The solution was carrot cake, which he then sold through his Mission Pak company . In 1960 it  became fashionable in restaurants and cafes in the US, at first as a novelty, but people like it so much that it quickly becomes a classic, competing the premises to make the best and attract the largest number of customers.

The American-based ” Food Network ” considers  carrot cake, with its cream cheese or frosting, as one of the main trendy foods of the 1970s .

For those of you who haven’t tried this type of dessert because you don’t like carrots, I encourage you to give it a try.

Like the pumpkin pie , it is a great pie, its flavor is sublime and a great surprise.

Preparation of the cheese and orange frosting

1. We will use a large bowl, if it is cold much better, like the cheese or cream cheese that must come out of the fridge.
2. We wash the orange and grate it with a good grater. It is important not to get to the white part, the recipe would make us bitter.
3. With the orange we make juice and strain, we do not want the seeds to spoil the recipe. We reserve.
4. We combine the two types of cheese cream with the orange juice, beat until it goes liquid to a kind of cream, with a little volume (not much).
5. This process will take us 3-4 minutes, nothing more. Once we have reached this kind of dense liquid cream, add the sugar, if it is glass better, and beat until it reaches almost solid state.
6. We reserve in the fridge until final assembly.

Preparation of the carrot cake

1. Beat the butter in the ointment with the sugar until it looks fluffy.
2. We add the eggs one by one to the butter mixture, incorporating each time with the manual rods.
3. We wash the other orange and grate it, make juice and strain it. We add everything to the previous mixture and stir.
4. We sift the flour and yeast over the mixture and mix well until it is integrated.
5. Add the pinch of salt, cloves, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg.
6. We mix all and in the end we grate or chop the carrot. With a touch of mincer the mixer will be perfect, with a grater you can also do it, it should be a little thick.
7. We mix the grated carrot and the chopped walnuts very well with the rest of the cream.

Baking Carrot and Orange Pie

1. Butter a “stick” mold, preferably silicone of about 30 cm.
2. If you do not have this type it can be metal but it must be lined with sulfurized oven paper.
3. The oven must be preheating at 180ºC (temperature up and down) 10 minutes before introducing the cake. We put the mold in the middle tray of the oven.
4. The cooking time will be approximately between 45-50 minutes, or until we prick it with a fork and see that it comes out clean.
5. When it takes 20 minutes in the oven (you will see that it already has a little crust, which begins to curdle) we put a little bit of aluminum foil to cover the surface and prevent it from burning.
6. The last 5-8 minutes we leave it uncovered so that it catches color.
7. Once the time has elapsed, we take out the cake and let it cool in the mold (without removing the mold) for at least half an hour,
8. Later we go to the plate where we are going to present it with the cream cheese.

Final presentation of the carrot and orange cake

1. We add the coverage by applying on the cake a thick layer as uniform as possible of the already prepared frosting.
2. We will keep the cake in the fridge and take it out about 15 minutes before your guests arrive.
3. Garnish with chopped walnuts and the orange zest that we have reserved.
4. Some mint leaves are not even painted to give it a touch of green that contrasts with orange.

A perfect cake for breakfast. A slightly healthier sweet than I am used to … and of course, delicious.

You can see in this step by step how to prepare this orange and carrot cake .

Tips for a yummy carrot orange cake

• Why should the cheese topping be cold? The cream cheese is fat and with the heat it loses consistency, if it is not cold it will be difficult to rise as we want, if it rises. The ideal temperature is around 10º C.
• With this little trick preparing the coverage will be very easy. I assure you that with the trick of the cold it comes out perfect. We will get a smooth, homogeneous cream and without any lump, perfect to put on top of the carrot cake when it is cold.
• The first references to the use of cream cheese icing in this dessert appear in the USA around 1960, when this type of cake began to cool.
• Carrot sponge cake can be eaten as is, but is often glazed or topped with cream cheese and chopped walnuts.
• They are popular in this type of format, like a sponge cake, but you can find it in a round cake, filled with more cream or in cupcakes that are so fashionable now.