Carrot Spice Cake

Some weeks ago we went to Borough Market and had this amazing Carrot Spice Cake with coconut. Decided to give it a go and, last weekend, baked my own! It wasn’t exactly as the one from the market but it was really good and moist inside.

I baked a cake with some cream cheese frosting and some plain cupcakes. Both were delicious! The recipe under is solely for one cake.

Carrot Spice Cake

• 150 g of flour
• 1 tea spoon of baking powder
• 3/4 tea spoon of baking soda
• 1 tea spoons of ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tea spoon of ground nutmeg
• 225 g of sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup of vegetable oil
• 275 g of carrots
• 1/3 tin of crushed pineapple (total used: 144 g net)
• 100 g of chopped walnuts (reserve some to decorate)
• 40 g of flaked coconut

1. Pre-heat the oven at 170ºC.
2. In a bowl mix the flour, the baking powder, the baking soda, the cinnamon and the nutmeg.
3. In a large bowl mix the sugar with the eggs and the oil. Add the flour mix, stirring well.
4. Peel the carrots and grate them thinly. Add it to the batter.
5. Add the pineapple, the walnuts and the coconut and mix well.
6. Grease a cake tin (20 cm / 8”) with butter and sprinkle with flour. Pour the cake dough into the tin and cook in the oven for approximately 35 minutes. Note that the cake will be quite moist inside and will gain some additional consistency after cooling down. 
7. Serve simple or with some cream cheese frosting (recipe under).

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 9 tbsp of cream cheese
• 3 tbsp of butter at room temperature
• 12 tbsp of icing sugar
• 1 tea spoon of vanilla essence
• crushed walnut and flaked coconut to decorate

1. In a bowl mix the cream cheese, the butter, the sugar and the vanilla. Whisk well until you get a smooth and glowing frosting.
2. When the cake has completely cooled down, using a spatula, cover the top of the cake with the frosting. You can be creative here!
3. Sprinkle the frosting with some crushed walnuts and flaked coconut.

Roasted Pork with Orange and Carrots

Back to Bristol and not very happy about it… All my friends are leaving and the city seems deprived of known faces…

Planning to start my job search next week after some days of rest and some homely food!

This next dish is a pork roast that I really love. Being always quite stressed with time, I decided to cut some edges and cook the pork only for 30 minutes and, after, slice it to cook it faster (shame on me!!!)… but, to be honest, I found out I really prefer the pork cooked this way… Each slice gets a crust and the pork fat dissolves better so you loose a bit of that fatty taste pork sometimes has.

 

Roasted Pork with Orange and Carrots (serves 4)

• 1 Kg of pork shoulder joint
• 4 oranges
• 4 big carrots
• 4 tbsp of white wine
• 3 garlic cloves
• 4 stems of fresh thyme
• salt and pepper

1. Pre-heat the oven at 180ºC.
2. Wash the carrots well and peel them. Grate the carrots and spread them evenly on the bottom of an oven dish.
3. Irrigate with the juice of three oranges and the white wine.
4. Place the meat on top of the carrots and orange juice, with the fat facing up.
5. Drizzle the meat with the juice of the remaining orange and season it with salt and pepper. I usually include some bits on the orange juice.
6. Wash the garlic cloves and the thyme. Smash the garlic cloves slightly without removing the skin (see point 7 of the Colourful Beef Stew recipe for more details). Add the garlic and thyme to the carrots and orange mixture.
7. Cook in the oven for approximately 30-40 minutes. Make sure that you irrigate the meat with some of the juices in the bottom of the tray at least twice during this time.
8. After this period, remove the dish from the oven. Take the pork joint to a cutting board and slice it. The inner slices will still be raw in the centre. Place them on the same oven dish and irrigate with the sauce from the bottom of the dish.
9. Place in the oven again and cook until the meat is properly cooked and the slices present a bit of a crust.
10. Serve topped with the carrots and orange juice.