The Absolute Best Carrot Cake Ever -- No Jet Plane Required

'Do it again!  Do it again!' is what Emilia says every time we are out on the trampoline bouncing around.  She loves to hold my hands (or dada's hands) and bounce in a circle singing, at the top of her lungs, 'Let's go fly a kite!  Up to the highest height!  Let's go fly a kite and send it soaring...'**  And at the end of the song we fall back, landing in a heap and staring up at the sky.  On sunny days, Emilia thinks it is quite hilarious to try to quote something I said to her on a very sunny day not so long ago: 'I don't want the sun on my face!  It's going to make me look old enough to be your mother!'  Now, really, I find that a rather funny thing to say.  But for the life of me, I can't figure out why she does. 

Anyway, while we are lying on our backs looking up at the sky (preferably Michael is right along beside side us) Emilia will point out all the planes that go by.  She is very good at deciphering between a sea-plane and a jet-plane, and every time she hears the latter, she happily exclaims, 'It's going to the airport!  Maybe we should go to the airport, too!'  Talk about a little girl after my own heart.  (I think she was just over a year and a half when she told me one afternoon, completely deadpan, and while holding my purse, the keys, and a Neiman Marcus shopping bag, 'I be right back, mama.'  'Oh, where you are going?'  'I going to the airport!  I going to Georgetown!')

And so, one evening the three of us were lying on the trampoline and gazing up at the sky (Governor was off barking at a squirrel somewhere), and we saw a plane high up in the sky.  Immediately I started singing, 'I'm leaving on a jet plane, I don't know when I'll be back again...'***  Michael quickly joined in, and once Emilia picked up enough words, she started singing, too.  And there we were, the three of us on a lovely summer evening, looking up at the sky and belting out one of the best songs ever.  It was quite nice, if you must know.  Now Emilia calls it 'her song' and randomly sings, 'Oh babe, I hate to go.'

Now then, why am I going on about a trampoline and airplanes and John Denver, you ask?  Well, it's really quite simple.  One of the cheapest ways to travel somewhere is to cook.  Sounds silly, but it's true.  You want to get to know a place, then eat its food.  Of course it isn't the same as actually being there, but it is the best substitute I've ever found. 

And this (quite naturally, don't you think) leads me to carrot cake.  There is a bakery/cafe in Paris called Rose Bakery.  It was opened up a handful of years ago by a British woman named Rose Carrarini (who co-founded Villandry in London).  It is meant to be a delectable little place where one can have Breakfast, Lunch, or Tea (like the cookbook suggests) in the manner of a lovely British tea-house/bakery.  And it is smack in the middle of Paris (46, Rue des Martyrs, to be precise).  Sounds marvelous, doesn't it?  Alas, we've no plans to hop on a jet-plane in the near future, but we could kind-of pretend that we do, right? 

As for the cake itself?  Well, it has won the spot of my new favorite recipe.  One day, while Emilia was down for her nap, I had two pieces with a nice glass of cold coffee (sort of in the manner of Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday, wouldn't you say?)  And then I had another slice after dinner that same night.  (I had to, Emilia and her dada wanted some for dessert.  And it would have been quite rude of them to eat it in front of me.)

The cookbook I have (currently on loan from the library) has both British and American measurements in it.  Strangely, I opted to use the former because it finally dawned on me: it's much more accurate because it is all by weight.  You don't need to worry about how densely packed your measuring cup is when it is all done by weight, because essentially you just pour and dump.  And to think I used to toil over my Ottolenghi recipes trying to do the conversions into cups and such, when all I needed to do was pull out my handy-dandy scale!  It was lickety split and I'm trying to figure out why it took me so long to figure this out.

And so, here is the recipe for the best carrot cake I've ever had.  And one of the added bonuses is that it has none of those pesky little raisins in it.  It just has lots and lots of carrots, a good handful of walnuts, and a healthy serving of cream cheese frosting, which, by the way, is perfect, not too sweet in the least.  Also, it is meant to yield enough for one carrot cake.  However, once I got going with it, I quickly realized that I needed to pull out my other cake pan as well.  It would make a lovely layer cake, I dare say.  However, I opted for my new favorite trick of putting one of the cakes in the freezer, wrapped tightly, sans frosting.  We pulled it out a while ago and it was perfect.  All I had to do was quickly whip up some more frosting and voilà! 

**If you don't recognize that this is from Mary Poppins, then heaven help you.
***That would  be John Denver, fyi.

Carrot Cake
Serves 8 (unless I happen to be at your house, then it obviously serves much less)

unsalted butter, for greasing
4 eggs
225 g caster sugar (I used regular granulated sugar)
300 ml sunflower oil
9 medium carrots, finely grated
300 g all-purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 rounded teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
150 g finely chopped walnuts

For the icing
125 g unsalted butter, softened
250 g cream cheese
½ teaspoon natural vanilla extract
50-75 g confectioners' sugar, depending on how sweet you like your icing

Preheat your oven to 350°F (That would be 180°C or Gas Mark 4, whatever that means)

Butter a 9-inch cake pan and line the bottom with parchment.  (I, happily, ended up using two 8-inch cake pans.)

Using your heavy-duty mixer or hand-held mixer, beat the eggs and sugar until they are light and fluffy, but not too stiff and white.  Pour in the oil, and beat for another minute or so.

In a separate bowl combine the rest of the dry ingredients: flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt.  Give it a nice stir.

Fold the carrots into the sugar, egg, oil mixture.  Next fold in your flour.  Once that is fully incorporated, fold in the walnuts.

Pour the lot into your pan(s) and bake for 45 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.  Once the cake(s) are out of the oven, leave on a wire rack to cool before removing from the tin(s). 

Now on to the frosting.  Make sure that everything is at room temperature.  Beat the butter and the cream cheese until it is smooth and starts to look nice.  Add the vanilla extract and the confectioners' sugar.  (I've found that sifting the sugar first will help you to avoid any of those ghastly lumps, but do what you'd like.)  Beat it again until it looks right. 

Once the cake is cold, top with the frosting.  'It can be as smooth or rough as you like.'  (Recipe from: Breakfast Lunch Tea by Rose Carrarini.  Phaidon Publishers, 2006.)