Podgy's weekend bake

Well hello there from Podgy le chef.

I'm here to share with you my cake making skills!!! Today I'm making Yummy Scrummy Carrot Cake. This is not my own invention, but found on the wonderful worldwide web.



If you'd like to bake alongside me, here's a long list of ingredients for you to buy:



175g light muscovado sugar

175ml sunflower oil

3 large eggs , lightly beaten

140g grated carrots (about 3 medium)

100g raisins (we didn't have raisins, so I used sultanas)

grated zest of 1 large orange

175g self-raising flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp grated nutmeg



To start, wash your furry paws, this is very impawtant (see what I did there? What a wit!)



Next, Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4/fan 160C. Alternatively, you can do this before you wash your paws!!! it really doesn't matter.



Grease two 7" cake pans, and line them with baking paper.



Tip the sugar into a large mixing bowl, pour in the oil and add the eggs.

Lightly mix with a wooden spoon. Stir in the grated carrots, raisins and orange rind. Mmm that smells rather heavenly.

Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices, then sift them into the bowl. Watch as the flour flies through the air, coating your black bits with a thin film of white!



Lightly mix all the ingredients - when everything is evenly amalgamated stop mixing. The mixture will be fairly soft and almost runny.



Pour the mixture into the prepared tins and bake for about 30-35 minutes, depending on your oven, until the sponges feel light and springy when you press the centre. You could insert a skewer to make sure the cake is cooked through too.



Cool the cakes in the tins for a few minutes, then turn out, peel off the paper and cool on a wire rack (the cake that is, not you personally).



This particular recipe calls for a thin icing on top, but being bears with large appetites, that just wouldn't do, so I searched the Internet and found a cream cheese recipe on The Pink Whisk website. These are Ruth's details on how to make 'the perfect cream cheese frosting':



Ingredients:

70g butter, softened

200g cream cheese

400g icing sugar sifted



The cream cheese needs to be cold, chilled in the fridge and kept there until you need it.

Beat the butter so it is super soft and ready to go, if it isn’t soft enough let it warm up a bit . If you use it still too cold you’ll never get it to combine in the next stage, leaving you with flecks of infuriating butter!

Add the cream cheese and beat them together until combined. Don’t over beat it (that’s important) – cream cheese loosens and becomes more liquidy the more you beat it so less is best.

Sift in half the icing sugar and beat together, add the remaining half and mix again.



Now I was busy admiring myself in the mirror at the last instruction, and beat all the icing sugar in together, but still achieved a nice spreadable cheesy frosting. I placed this in the fridge until I needed to fill my cake to ensure it stayed set, it was a rather warm day today and I didn't want runny filling. My finished cake looked like this

Then like this

Then this

Etc. Oh, was I supposed to be sharing it? Oops.




With love from the bears