Juuust Right: Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Sometimes size matters. A lot.

Sometimes, a cupcake just won't cut it. Too much frosting heaped on a disappointing little nubbin of cake. No.

Then again, a full-sized cake can be a challenge. A cake that sits around, challenging everyone in the house to break the one-slice-a-day limit of the post-holiday season. A cake that gets a little bit more dry every day, pressuring you to eat more than you really want. And cake is a terrible thing to waste.

Never fear! The geniuses of bake ware design have actually thought of this problem. Hello, 7 inch cake pan. My ideal, not-too-big-not-too-small cake pan, perfect for the Goldilocks within.

So this carrot cake recipe is for a 7 inch pan (it's pretty much my--slightly adapted-- carrot cake muffin recipe, baked in a cake pan and slathered with cream cheese deliciousness. I might possibly have mentioned that carrot cake is my absolute favorite cake. Ever. And this one turned out pretty darn well. It's delicately spiced and filled with scrumptious raisins and slivers of carrots. The aromatic orange oil is delicious, cutting creaminess of the frosting but orange zest and a little juice will do just as well.

Recipe:
Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
for a 7 inch cake pan

1 1/4 cups all purpose/plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon orange essence/oil
2 1/2 cups grated carrot
1/2 cup golden raisins

Preheat the oven to 350º F (180º C).

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and spices and set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs thoroughly, until light and fluffy. Beat in the sugar and combine well. Add the oil, vanilla, and orange.

Now gradually fold in the flour mixture, stirring until just combined. Finally, add the grated carrots and raisins.

Pour batter into a greased pan and bake in the preheated oven for about 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Frosting:
1/2 cup (1 stick, 113 grams) unsalted butter
4 ounces cream cheese
1/3 cup superfine sugar
a couple drops of orange essence
a couple drops of vanilla extract

Cream the butter until it's light and fluffy. Add the sugar and thoroughly combine them before adding the cream cheese. Beat the mixture until it's all combined and has become smooth and then add the orange and vanilla.

When the cake has completely cooled, it can be iced. Store the iced cake in the fridge because the cream cheese in the frosting won't keep when at room temperature!

Spiced Bread Pudding with Rum Butter Sauce

My unofficial taste-tester gives this bread pudding two thumbs up ("All the thumbs I am capable of giving.") Really, what more can I say?

Perhaps that this is comfort food at its warm, scrumptious finest, combined with a little thriftiness. Or that it's a great way to use up unappetizing, old bread.

Or maybe just: it has cream in it. And rum.

I've had my fair share of dry/boring/flavorless bread puddings. Dishes that clearly exist merely to use up bread that no one will eat, bringing nothing but shame to the noble name of dessert. Believe me, this is not one of those. This boozy bread pudding is moist and cinnamon-y. It tastes like cinnamon french toast doused with some very decadent syrup. It is finger-licking, bowl-scraping goodness.

I ate it straight out of the pan. And I am not ashamed.

Recipe:
Bread Pudding with Spiced Rum Sauce
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
4 cups cubed day-old bread (I used a mixture of leftover challah, white, and wholemeal bread)
1/2 cup raisins
2 tablespoons rum (I used Captain Morgan's Spiced but any kind will do)

In a small dish, pour the rum over the raisins and set aside to soak.

In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, milk, and cream. Add the sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon and blend thoroughly.

Add the cubed bread and rum-soaked raisins and stir until the bread is thoroughly coated. (Use a large spoon, use your hands. Embrace the goo.)

Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least an hour to allow the bread to soak up the liquid.

Preheat the oven to 175° C (350° F).

After the bread mixture has rested for a while, tip it into a greased baking dish (I used a 9 inch cake tin but a square metal or glass baking dish works just as well) and bake for 30-35 minutes (until the top is golden brown) and then allow to cool on a cooling rack.

Serve warm, with a drizzle (or the drizzle's less elegant cousin, the slosh) of rum butter sauce or on its own.

Spiced Rum Butter Sauce

110 grams butter (1/2 cup)

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup whipping cream

a pinch of salt

3 tablespoons spiced rum

In a small saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the brown sugar and salt. Keep stirring until the mixture is smooth and thoroughly combined.

Pour in the cream and continue stirring to blend. Allow to simmer for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, so that the mixture thickens.

Stir in the rum and simmer for another couple minutes before removing from the heat. Allow to cool and thicken in the saucepan.

This can be made in advance and refrigerated, just wait for it to cool before putting it in a refrigerator-able container and reheat before serving.

Back in the Kitchen: Rock Cakes

For the past few days I've been nursing a cold which, unsurprisingly, has left me with very little desire to do anything as strenuous as cooking. Or eating, really. Anything that might get in the way of my busy schedule of sneezing, coughing, and napping.

Two days on diet of ham sandwiches and Ben and Jerry's frozen yoghurt and enough was enough. It was time to get back on the horse (or at least out of the bed). I decided to start with something simple, though. Nothing adventurous, just a recipe that I've made often enough that it has a comforting ritualistic familiarity to it: Rock Cakes.

Although I'm still not sure why these are called "Rock Cakes" (I'm sorry, they just don't look like rocks, however I look at them), I remember my mom making them when I was little (big enough to get in the way, little enough to not be much help!) I also remember that she used to replace the raisins in half of every batch with crystallized ginger, an ingredient I've developed a taste for in later years but which, at the time, my sister and I both detested. Vocally. As I've grown older and more wily, it has occurred to me that this could well have been a simple tactical move on my mother's part, guaranteeing herself a fair share of the goodies. Well played, mother. Well played.

In the years since I've begun baking myself, I've made Rock Cakes several times and experimented by using a variety of dried fruit-- raisins, apricots, cranberries-- and they've all turned out equally scrumptious. Buttery with a crunchy outside and a soft inside. They're another of those treats that, with little effort, can be tweaked to personal tastes. And they make a very tasty teatime snack!

Recipe:
Rock Cakes
1 cup self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
113 grams butter (1/2 cup) at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup dried fruit (raisins, currents, dried cranberries, etc.)
1 egg
1-3 tablespoons milk

Sift together the flour and baking powder and then cut in the butter in cubes. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingers until it's roughly the consistency of rough breadcrumbs.

Add the sugar and dried fruit and thoroughly combine.

Add the egg and mix well. Begin adding the milk, a tablespoon at a time, until the mixture is thoroughly combined-- not so dry that it crumbles apart and not so wet that you have a puddle of milk and egg! It's been pretty humid here lately, so I only needed one tablespoon, but at other times I've had to use all three.

Spoon scoops of about two tablespoons each, spaced about an inch and a half apart, on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes at 200° C (390° F) until lightly browned. Let the cakes cool on the baking tray for a few minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.

I got 16 cakes, on the small side.