Carrot Cake with Lemon Ginger Mascarpone Icing

This cake. It pains me a little to look at the photos of this cake. At the same time it makes me a little glad that I took photos of this cake before it met its doom. If you follow me on instagram or facebook then you will already know that about 2 hours after I took these photos this cake was lying upside down IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. It was quickly followed by my high pitched shriek of horror while having flashbacks to the time I dropped a 7-layer trifle on my carpet. I don't even know how it happened. I'm never trusting cake carrier containers ever again.

The funny thing was, I wasn't completely happy with how I decorated the top of the cake anyway. I changed my mind several times while making it and the final result wasn't exactly what I had hoped for. But it was good enough. I guess it just wasn't meant to be? Anyway, with a car rushing towards the doomed cake, we scooped it up (surprisingly intact except for the completely smushed top layer) and dumped it back on the cake carrier and ran. Oh and did I mention this cake was for my Mum's birthday?

My family were highly amused when they saw the roadkill cake. Luckily for me the cake seemed to fall straight on its face without touching anywhere else so I was able to do a quick salvage operation and chop off the top, flip the cake over and dust it with loads of icing sugar. It still wasn't the same, I think the fall made the whole cake deflate a little so it was a lot shorter than it looks in these photos.

But in the end it tasted pretty amazing (and not at all gravelly as far as I could tell). This is actually the first time I've baked a carrot cake, I usually avoid it since the recipe always contains walnuts and I'm allergic to them. I skipped the walnuts this time but I think the crunch of nuts was definitely missed. Next time I might try using pumpkin seeds or pine nuts to add that extra texture. The cake recipe was adapted from Bourke St Bakery's recipe, it's a really interesting recipe that is almost like a sponge cake. Instead of making one tall cake I split the mixture between my three cake tins (I'm so glad I did that, if I had dropped a 1 layer cake it wouldn't have been salvagable). It meant that there was a nice amount of icing with each mouthful of cake. And since I know my Mum doesn't like her cakes too sweet, I replaced the normal cream cheese icing with a very light and fluffy mascarpone and cream icing flavoured with ginger and lemon. It was zesty and light and definitely not too sweet. I couldn't get a shot of a cake slide since it was a birthday cake but there is a dodgy iphone shot of the innards below. The most important thing is that Mum enjoyed it, though she is making a case for a second birthday cake since her first one ended up on the ground. Happy Birthday Mum!!!

Carrot Layer Cake with Lemon Ginger Mascarpone Icing

(carrot cake adapted from Lisa's version of the Bourke St Bakery Carrot Cake, icing adapted from Martha Stewart)

For the carrot cake:

70g walnuts (I'm allergic so I skipped this, you could substitute with pine nuts or pumpkin seeds if you still want the crunch)

150g (about 1 cup plus 2 tbsp) self-raising flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking (bi-carb) soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

2 egg whites

60g (about 1/4 cup) caster (superfine) sugar (for eggwhites)

1 egg

1 egg yolk

160g (about 2/3 cup) caster (superfine) sugar (for egg yolks)

170ml (about 3/4 cup) extra light olive oil

125g (4.4 oz, about 2-3 carrots) of peeled and grated carrots

Grease well and line the base and sides of three 18cm (7inch) round cake tins, or two 20cm (8inch) tins.  Preheat oven to 200°C (390°F) (or 180°C (350°F) fan-forced). Place the walnuts on a baking tray and cook for 4-5 minutes or until lightly roasted. Cool and cut into thirds. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and salt into a bowl. Repeat to ensure they are evenly mixed. Put the egg whites in a large clean bowl. Whisk egg whites on high speed with an electric mixer until soft peaks start to form. Slowly add 60g of sugar while whisking and continue mixing until soft peaks form. Transfer the meringue to another bowl and set aside until needed.

Placethe egg and egg yolk in the large mixing bowl and add the sugar for egg yolks. Mix on high speed with an electric mixer for 3-4 minutes or until the mixture doubles in volume and is quite airy. With the mixer still on, slowly pour the oil in a thin stream being careful that it doesn’t split or deflate too much. Remove the bowl from the mixer and with a spatula, gently fold in the flour mixture until combined. Fold in the carrots and walnuts. Working quickly, lightly fold in the meringue, but do not fold in completely. You should still be able to see some white streaks through the mixture. Pour equal amounts of the mixture into the prepared tins and bake for 25-30 mins, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean and the surface of the cake springs back when lightly pressed. If using two or one tin instead of three you should increase your baking time accordingly. Cool in tin for 5 minutes then carefully remove and cool completely on a wire rack.

For the icing:

340g (12oz) mascarpone cheese, room temperature

3/4 cup (about 100g) icing (confectioners') sugar, sifted

1 tbsp powdered ginger, can be adjusted to taste

Zest of 1 lemon + 2 tsp lemon juice

1 1/2 cups (about 360ml) thickened (heavy) cream

Place mascarpone, icing sugar, powdered ginger and lemon zest and juice in a large mixing bowl and whisk together with a hand whisk until smooth. In a separate clean mixing bowl, whisk cream until soft peaks form. Take care not to overwhip. Fold cream into mascarpone mixture until smooth then place in a piping bag with a 1cm round tip. 

To assemble; place one layer of cake on your cake stand or plate. Pipe rounds of icing just inside the edge of the top of the cake if you want to create the scalloped effect, then fill in the rest of the top of the cake. Cover with another layer of cake and repeat. For the top of the cake I spread a thin layer of icing using a spatula and then repeated the piped rounds around the edge of the cake and topped with soft silver cachous and a dusting of icing sugar. Alternatively you can just dust with icing sugar or top with a smooth layer of icing and more toasted walnuts. Keep chilled in the fridge until ready to serve.