Carrot and Orange Cake with Grand Marnier

The idea of grating a ton of carrots to make a cake never appealed to me.

However one thing helped to kick me into gear to make Conor and Chris' favourite cake. So close to Valentine's Day I decided to show my love.

Knowing my Philips Robust Food processor would make short work of the carrots so I set about looking for a suitable recipe. Only to find out I would'nt be grating!

 Its actually made with cooked and blended carrots. It sounds unusual but stick with it, its so worth it!

Its from James Martin and its his Granny's recipe.

Well the Grand Marnier isn't part of his granny's ingredients but the lovely man has added it!

 This orange liqueur is a fave tipple of mine, one of the first ever reviews I did on here in fact!

OK you need to assemble the ingredients while the carrots are cooking as its so fast once they are ready and the use of fluffy egg white means it needs to be in the oven as soon as they are folded in.

The recipe given had a 30cm tin, now my tins are large but I had none this big, I think looking at the cake it was not that big. I used a 24cm tin with a loose base, I imagine two large sandwich tins may work. It will need halving when cool so if you are not confident about doing this then maybe two tins is the way to go.

Throw in the used oranges to the pan to give extra flavour and another tip, don't peel the carrots, just top and tail. Even easier! 

Tip I added orange juice extract to the icing instead of liqueur, and ideal for a teetotal cake for the cream filling too.

5 medium-sized carrots, sliced

2 oranges, juice only

125 ml corn oil

375 g caster sugar

4 free-range eggs, separated

350 g plain flour

15 g baking powder

FILLING

500 ml double cream

2-3 tbsp orange liqueur

TOPPING

110g icing sugar

1tsp orange liqueur

1.5 tsp water

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4.
2. Grease a 30cm round cake tin with butter. Line with a cartouche (Easy way to make greaseproof circle, check out youtube)

3. To make the cake, place the carrots in a medium pan, just cover with water and add the orange juice and leftover oranges. Bring to the boil and cook until tender. Drain, but do not cool.

 
4. Put the carrots in the processor and blend to a paste, then flour baking powder, corn oil, sugar and 4 egg yolks in to blender or food processor and blend to a purée. Cool.

5. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and set aside.

6. Place the carrot mixture in a large mixing bowl and gently fold in the egg whites in two halves. You will need to get straight into the oven so make sure the whites are ready to go. Pour the mix into tin. Bake for 40-45 minutes until golden and cooked. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.

7. Whisk the double cream until thick but not stiff and gradually stir in the liqueur.

8. When the cake is cold, cut it in half horizontally and sandwich with the whipped cream.

9. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and stir in the liqueur and water until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Drizzle over the cake and leave to set.