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Cake club - the boozy round

I spent most of Sunday morning making cakes for cake club on Monday.
Unlike most of the contestants on great British bake off, I do not find baking as relaxing as say cooking the Sunday lunch.
I chose to make carrot cakes with sultanas soaked in Cointreau from 'what Katie ate'.
Despite having the book right in front of me I still managed to make a few mistakes ... Particularly annoying as I was trying to double up the recipe.
There was the usual stress as I put them in the oven and within minutes they looked giant compared with the pictures in the book, but then again Katie Quinn Davies is a food stylist ... It probably wasn't her first attempt.
Piping the frosting on was also a bit of a mess as I hadn't done it before. However I can see that it could be quite addictive.
In the end I thought the cakes came out ok but if I do them again I would put more fruit and carrots in.
Sadly I also managed to bash them up a bit on the way to work so I'm not sure how I will do versus Jo's rather spectacular double act of mojito and champagne cup cakes.
We await the scores of the good people of Krow.



Recipe

To make 12 of these little beauties, you will need:

Ingredients

80g sultanas;
Juice of one orange;
1 tablespoon Cointreau
75g brown sugar;
125ml rapeseed oil
125ml runny honey, plus extra for drizzling;
3 free range eggs;
1 vanilla pod
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger;
225g plain flour;
2 teaspoons baking powder;
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda;
Pinch salt;
3 carrots, grated;
Small handful roasted walnuts, roughly chopped.

For the icing:

135g icing sugar, sifted;
85g unsalted butter, softened;
80g cream cheese;
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method

Place the sultanas, orange juice and Cointreau in a small bowl and leave in the fridge overnight to macerate. 

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Grease a 12-hole muffin tin, line with papers if desired.

Place the brown sugar, oil, honey, eggs and vanilla into a large bowl.

Sift the ginger, flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt into another large bowl.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well to combine.

Stir in the grated carrot and soaked sultanas.

Pour the mixture into the prepared muffin cases, filling each hole three-quarters full.

Bake for 20-30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a cake comes out clean. Remove the cakes from the mould and allow to cool on wire racks.To make the icing, beat the butter, vanilla and cream cheese together in a small bowl before gradually adding the sifted icing sugar and mixing to a smooth consistency.

Ice the cooled cakes and serve them topped with a scatter of the chopped walnuts and a drizzle of honey if you like. I really recommend topping them with honey as it really brings out the delicious taste of honey you baked into the fluffy little cakes.


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