Carrot cake is delicious but it can be disheartening if it comes out of the oven soggy or collapsed, but there is a simple technique to bake it perfectly.
If your carrot cake is greasy and too wet, Sally McKenney, a baker and founder of Sally’s Baking Addiction, has shared that it is “pretty easy” to fix as long as you add applesauce to the batter.
She said: “To prevent the cake from tasting too moist (wet) and oily, I add some applesauce. You could even use crushed pineapple, too! These flavours pair beautifully with brown sugar and spices.”
It may seem strange, but apple sauce is a substitute for fat and will add the right amount of moisture to a cake without the need for an excessive amount of butter or oil.
Apple sauce also acts as a binding agent, binding the dry ingredients together so the dish will stand taller and have no chance of collapsing while cooking.
However, if your carrot cake is coming out dry and crumbly then the trick is to add more brown sugar to your cake batter.
Sally said: “I’ve come across a lot of carrot cake recipes that are sweetened with mostly granulated sugar. That’s great, but granulated sugar doesn’t do much for the cake besides sweeten it. Brown sugar not only sweetens cake, it produces so much flavour and moisture. It’s just… the best!”
Brown sugar contains molasses, which will change the texture of the cake as it adds more moisture while it is cooking in the oven, making it more tender and stopping it from drying out.
What is fantastic about brown sugar is that it will also improve the taste to give a richer and more caramel-like flavour, which will complement the natural sweetness of the carrots.
How to make a tastier carrot cake
Ingredients
To make the cake:
- 260g of grated carrots (about 4 large carrots)
- 300g of light or dark muscovado sugar
- 100g of caster sugar
- 240ml of vegetable oil (or sunflower oil, or melted coconut oil)
- Four large eggs
- 130g smooth, unsweetened applesauce
- One teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
- 300g of plain flour
- Two teaspoons of baking powder
- One teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- Half a teaspoon of salt
- One and a half teaspoons of ground cinnamon
- One teaspoon of ground ginger
- A quarter teaspoon of ground nutmeg
- A quarter teaspoon of teaspoon ground cloves
To make the cream cheese frosting:
- 450g of full-fat cream cheese
- 115g of unsalted butter.
- 480g of icing sugar
- One and a half teaspoons of pure vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
Recipe
To make the cake, preheat oven to 180C. Grease two cake pans and line with baking paper.
Place the brown sugar, granulated sugar, oil eggs, vanilla extract and applesauce in a large mixing bowl. Stir together until no brown sugar lumps remain.
In a separate mixing bowl. Add the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Also, add the spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves) and stir until well combined.
Pour the first sugary batter into the dry ingredients with the spices. Add the grated carrots and fold the ingredients together until everything is combined.
Spoon the batter evenly into the cake pans and bake for 30 to 35 minutes. To test if they are done, poke the cake centre with a toothpick. If the toothpick comes out the cake clean, it is ready.
Take the cakes out of the oven and leave to cool completely in the pans. Make sure they have completely cooled down before making the frosting.
To make the frosting, add the cream cheese and butter to a mixing bowl. Beat until smooth, and then add the sugar, vanilla extract and a pinch of salt.
Mix everything together until you have a creamy mixture. Add more sugar if the frosting is too thin, add milk if it is too thick, or add a little more salt if it is too sweet.
Add the frosting to the top of both cakes, sandwich them together and then use any remaining frosting to decorate the sides of the cake.
Your delicious and mouthwatering cake is now ready to serve.
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