Teleporting (Carrot Cake)

I must have loved food from an early age because I remember chatting to my best friend at the age of 8 about what we were eating (often we would make it up) and then pretend to send the imaginary food down the phone line. The person on the other side's job was to suck in really hard and imagine that you could taste whatever was sent down the line: usually a big moist piece of chocolate cake with icing.
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This carrot cake recipe has made the modern equivalent of such a journey: the Photographer and I were living in Germany for 6 months at the end of 2009. During this time, a friend in South Africa emailed me and asked whether I had a good carrot cake recipe. I didn't, but I remembered a cookbook at my mom's place which I had used to make carrot cake several times while growing up.So I popped off a quick email to Australia. Within a few hours, the recipe arrived via Germany in South Africa.

(I have a suspicion that once I post this recipe on the blog, the recipe will "travel" to all sorts of other destinations as well).

This recipe comes from "My Way With Food" by Pamela Shippel.This is one of the cookbooks which I learned to bake from.

You will not regret making this cake (unless you really dislike carrot cake, and even then, you will probably like it).

Note: This recipe makes a lot of cake so I usually use half the recipe.

Cake

 4 extra large eggs

310 ml (1 ¼ cup) castor sugar

310 ml (1 ¼ cup) oil

5ml vanilla essence

625 ml flour

10 bicarbonate of soda

5 ml baking powder

10ml cinnamon

625 ml grated carrot (tightly packed)

100g pecans nuts, chopped

Zest of half a lemon

Preheat the oven to 160º C

Beat the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the oil to the egg mixture.

Sift the dry ingredients

Add the dry ingredients, nuts, and grated carrots to the egg mixture in 3 batches and fold in gently.

Pour the dough into a large square dish or two 20 to 25cm round tins lined with baking paper.

Smooth the top and bake for 45 minutes in the square dish or 23-35 minutes in the two round tins.
The cake is ready when a skewer poked into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Ice when cold

Icing

90g butter

500ml icing sugar

3 ml vanilla essence

125g smooth cottage cheese ( approximately)

Use a food processor* to cut the butter into the icing sugar until it looks like course bread crumbs. 

Add the vanilla and cream cheese and use the food processor to mix it in. Do not overmix.

  

Spread over cake when cold.

Garnish with lemon zest.

*If you do not have a food processor, cut the butter into small pieces and use your fingers (not your palms) to rub the butter into the icing sugar. Then mix about 1/3 of the cream cheese in with a wooden spoon. Then add the remaining cream cheese until just mixed through.