Carrot Cake (Because True Love Conquers All)

Carrots are one of my least favourite foods by far.  I've been working through my intense dislike for them, because I'm totally an adult.  I've been able to include them in soups and stews for many years with no fatal consequences.  A friend taught me about honey glazed roasted carrots...and that upped the game further.  But of course it was my beloved who has forced me all the way to the dark side to indulge his love of carrot cake.  Carrots?  In a cake?  Whhyyyyooooohhhwhhhyyy?  I love cake so much, why would he pursue this travesty?

Long story short, I researched the heck out of recipes for carrot cake.  Made my concessions to the inclusions (yes Catherine, carrot cake must in fact have carrots in it) and exclusions (raisins are NOT mandatory).  I remembered what I liked about carrot cakes I had eaten in the past (an absence of extreme chunks of carrot was a highlight) and set about trying to replicate it.  Folks, this is true love.

Is he looking adoringly at me or the cake?  I think both.  

Carrot Cake

Cake Mix:

1 1/2 cups caster sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups finely grated carrots (the small section on the grater works best)

Frosting:
125 grams butter, softened
250 gram block of cream cheese, softened
500 grams icing sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup finely chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 160C (fan forced).  Prepare your bundt pan as you would normally.  A lot of recipes call for buttering and flouring, but my bundt pan just needs a spray of cooking spray to release cakes like a champion.  Do what you know works. 

In a large bowl, mix the sugar together with the oil, eggs and vanilla until it is all fully incorporated.  In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.  My new trick is to use a balloon whisk on the dry ingredients rather than putting them through a sifter...but I am a very impatient baker.  Do whichever suits your baking style.

Add the flour mix in to the wet mix and combine well.  Add the carrots, and mix until it is all incorporated evenly.   

Pour in the cake mix to your prepared bundt pan, and ensure it is evenly spread out.  

Bake for approximately 50 minutes, checking and turning at the half way point.

When it is done, let it cool for about five minutes on a rack in the pan and then turn out to cool completely.  

For the frosting, cream together the butter and cream cheese until very smooth and kind of fluffy.  Add the vanilla and powdered sugar, blend well.  Incorporate the pecans which should be very finely chopped (I blasted mine in the food processor).  Frost the bundt cake once it is completely cooled.  

Best to keep this cake in the fridge, not that it lasts very long!

The Revelation That Is Chia Pudding

For some time now, our family has been trying to eat healthier while still enjoying delicious treats.  This blog should probably be sub-categorised as "Sometimes Foods".  This latest culinary epiphany can actually be categorised as "Any Time You Want" food.  Chocolate pudding for breakfast in full knowledge that it is good for me?  Uh, yes please.  Chia is a great source of fibre, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin B, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc and manganese and it has a unique ability to absorb liquids and turn into magic pudding!  

This recipe can be both sugar free and dairy free, depending on how you make it.  I made mine with regular milk, but you could easily make it with almond or soy milk.   

Chocolate Chia Pudding

Ingredients:

3 cups milk (almond, soy, cow)
3/4 cup chia seeds (white or black)
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
100 - 150 mls maple syrup (to taste)

Method:

Combine all of the ingredients except the maple syrup in a good sized bowl.  As always, the quality of the cocoa makes all of the difference in this.  I used the Hershey's Special Dark (my default cocoa) but any high quality dark cocoa powder will work well. Whisk well until everything is fully incorporated.  Add the maple syrup to taste and whisk through.  

Cover the bowl and let sit overnight, and you should have a healthy bowl of pudding for breakfast!  Serving suggestion: a dollop of yoghurt, some fresh fruit, and a smile.  This recipe makes about 6 servings.

Enjoy!

Better Than Bestest Brownies

If I updated this blog as often as I think about updating this blog…I’d be a different sort of writer than I am.  In an attempt to breathe some life into my creative self, I recently did not one but two creative writing courses.  As you would expect, I walked out of  both feeling like I could do anything!  I was a writer!

Truth be told, it was one of the aphorisms our instructor passed on to us that has had the most resonance – “If you are waiting for inspiration before writing, you aren’t a writer you are a waiter.”  Ouch.  And so true.

I’ve been doing a lot of waiting of late, and while waiting I’ve been cooking.  My husband encourages me to write down when I come up with a new dish…and I always mean to and just forget.  Some of the dishes I’ve come up with  are not very attractive, so don’t lend themselves to food blogging but boy are they delicious (I’m looking at you "Rice Noodles, Omelet and Wombok in Spicy Soy Sauce"). 

So what recipe to share with you?  I think we need to go back to beginning – I’ve added a significantly amazing new variation to my brownie recipe collection.  I jokingly sent a text message to one of my best friends (she's my Chief Brownie Connoisseur) that I had accidentally made a recipe better than my original and favorite. 

This recipe is a fusion of chocolate and cocoa brownie styles…somehow it tastes just like the brownies of my dreams.  They are chewy and rich and beautiful.  So easy and all done in one bowl, so with minimal clean up mess. I am running out of superlative descriptors, perhaps I need another creative writing course (or a thesaurus).

Better than Bestest Brownies

Ingredients:

250grams unsalted butter, melted

1 ½ cups sugar

3 eggs, room temperature (ideally)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup plain flour

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ cup dark chocolate cocoa powder

350 grams dark chocolate chips (divided)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 160C.  Line a 9” x 13” pan with baking paper (a better option than just trying to spray the pan…trust me…I’ve tried both).

Take the very best butter you can find, 250 grams, and melt it.  I have fallen in love with Lescure French butter, and I can’t see a way back to any other kind of butter. 

Put the sugar into a medium sized bowl, and pour over the melted butter.  Mix well, until the sugar and butter are well combined.  I don’t use beaters for this recipe, just a simple wooden spoon.  How retro.

Add the vanilla extract, and stir through.

Add the three eggs, all at once, and mix them well.  The mix will start to come together nicely, pulling away from the bowl a bit.  This is your sign it’s ready to add the dry ingredients.

Put the flour, salt, baking powder and cocoa in the bowl.  Do use the very best cocoa powder you can get.  I have managed to get my hands on a large supply of Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa (thank you Amazon) but Callebaut makes a lovely dark chocolate cocoa that would work too. 

Mix all the dry ingredients in well, then add 175 grams of the dark chocolate chips. 

Tip the delectable contents of the bowl into your prepared pan, and bake for 30 minutes.  I advocate turning the pan halfway through the bake time, but my oven has its own personality quirks as I’m sure everyone’s does.

I can highly recommend getting a spatula to “clean the bowl out” and can advocate that the brownie mix is as good uncooked as it is cooked.

When you pull the brownies out of the oven to cool, dole out the remaining 175 grams of chocolate chips over the top.  Leave for about ten minutes and they will melt, you can then spread the chocolate evenly over the top.  You can pimp these brownies with anything you can imagine from this point - some coconut flakes (evil, but it takes all sorts to make the world go round), some dried fruit (cranberries or apricots would be nice), chopped nuts, mini marshmallows, or maybe even some lollies.  Add these while the chocolate is still soft, so the add-ins can set in as the brownies cool.

Let cool (if you can wait), cut into about 20 squares, and then devour.