Carrot Cake…Just Enough?!

For Easter, I'm not going to make a whole carrot cake for my small family of three. To solve this problem, I created a beautiful carrot cake that feeds just two to four people with no waste and no fuss. Hi, I'm Gemma Stafford, professional chef with over 20 years experience and I'm going to show you how to make the most incredible small batch carrot cake. So to make this little cake, you just need a few ingredients. We're going to start out with some all purpose flour in a bowl, also known as plain flour. I'm going to add in a little bit of cinnamon, because in carrot cake, we always have those like lovely warm spices and a small bit of nutmeg. Now not too much nutmeg because it can be a little bit overwhelming. And this is a small little cake. If you do not have those ingredients, you can always use a little bit of mixed pie spices, what we use in in Europe and England and Ireland. Or you can use pumpkin pie spice. And those will work really well. A raising agent in this tiny little cake is some baking soda. Let me show you a little tip about baking soda that I learned at Ballymaloo from Darina Allen, which was when you're using baking soda, put it in the palm of your hand. See those little lumps? Just break off those little lumps with your finger and in it goes. I'll tell you why, because those little lumps don't easily break down and you do not want to bite into a lump of baking soda when you're eating your dessert. And here lastly, for our dry ingredients, a little bit of salt, because all of our baking needs salt. Give those ingredients a little bit of a mix together. As you can see for this tiny little cake, it's even more easy because we're doing it all by hand. You do not need a mixer. Set those over to the side and let's talk about our wet ingredients. I have one large egg. This is room temperature. I use large eggs in all of my baking. So if you're wondering what size, that's what I use. I'm going to add in a little bit of dark brown sugar. I love to use dark brown sugar because it has like more caramel notes than a light brown sugar, obviously. And if you go to make this cake and you realize you don't have any brown sugar, remember you can make it at home with my video. A little bit of treacle or molasses and some white sugar. You just mix them together. It is so simple. Can we have some melted butter? In that goes. Often in a carrot cake you'll see a call for oil. I like to use melted butter. It's richer. It has salt in it. I use salted butter. The flavor is better and you still get all the moisture that oil provides. Now a little bit of orange zest. Now when it comes to carrot cake, everybody likes theirs a different way. So if you don't want orange zest in your carrot cake, leave it out. But can I tell you, it is really lovely, fragrant surprise. And as always, my favorite, a little bit of vanilla extract. Use the good stuff for this cake. And then with my whisk, I'm just going to whisk those together again. With the wet ingredients, I do like to give it a little bit of welly and really cream it for around two minutes to make it light and fluffy. And if you see any lumps of brown sugar hanging around in there, break those down. Doing this just aerates the cake that little bit more. You know when we whip eggs, when we're making a Genoise sponge, Swiss roll, something like that, we're introducing air. And that's one of the secrets of this little cake is to whisk those wet ingredients until they're lovely and fluffy. Once your wet ingredients are all combined, then add your dry into your wet with a spatula. Just mix those together until just combined. One thing about this little cake is you want to be careful not to over mix it because we know from 12 years of Bigger Bolder Baking that over mixing your flour once it's in there can toughen your cake, your cupcakes, your cookies, anything like that. Before it's completely mixed, we're going to add in our carrots. Now this is the secret, not just to this carrot cake, but to any carrot cake. One big mistake people make is that they grate the carrot too big and you end up with a cake with carrot lumps in it and not a carrot cake where the carrot has just dissolved and disappeared all the way throughout. You want to grate it really, really fine just like this so it dissolves into the cake and disappears. Nobody wants to eat carrot cake with big lumps of carrot. And let's face it, we've all had that cake. Just for your reference at home, you want to grate it on a side just like this, really small and fine. It does take a few minutes and it needs some elbow grease, but believe me, it'll be worth it. So in goes the grated carrots. So lastly, I'm going to leave this ingredient up to you because everybody has a different preference when it comes to carrot cake. I'm going to add in some toasted chopped walnuts. You can also add in pecans if you want. However, some people don't like nuts in their carrot cake. So you can replace it with a little bit of grated coconut, which some people like, or even a little bit of diced pineapple or raisins. I actually love raisins in mine. This time I'm using these walnuts. Totally optional. You can decide what you want to do. Then just mix that batter together just to incorporate that carrot. This cake is really fantastic for small families like my own. We're a family of three. This gives us all a nice slice of what we love without any waste. So here I have a six inch cake pan. It has been lined, buttered and floured. And in goes our batter. Just like that. Oh my gosh. Even when it's raw, it smells amazing. Give the batter a little spread out in the pan. Try and get it as even as possible. Here we go. Nothing wasted. I like to give a little tap on the counter to flatten it out so it bakes evenly. That's it. Could not be simpler. Let's get this little guy into the oven. So bake your cake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, 180 degrees Celsius for roughly 30 minutes. You'll know when it's done because it has risen and it's firm in the middle. Now I'm going to take this opportunity to introduce the Bold Baking Hotline. And this is where I answer questions from you on the topic that we're featuring in this recipe. And this is carrot cake. So let's answer some of your carrot cake related questions. So my best ever carrot cake, if you've never made it, you have to try it. It is so incredible, but it's a really big cake. And that's why we're making this little small cake. So one question that came up on this cake, and it's not the first time it's happened, I will admit. I tried this cake and it's amazing. Thank you. It is. The only thing is, is that the cream cheese frosting didn't work. It was too runny. I'm living in the UK. I already know where this is going. Just an FYI. I've been doing this a long time. I'm living in the UK. Yeah, I know what you're going to say. And here I used a tub of Philadelphia. Now, let me tell you where you went wrong. Tub of Philadelphia. When you're making cheesecakes, when you're making cream cheese frosting, anything that needs to have a stiff structure, do not use tub cream cheese of any kind. It has air in it, and it has water in it, and extra additives. That is great for smearing on bagels, but it is not good for baking when it comes to cheesecakes and cream cheese frostings, things like that. What you need is what we call block cream cheese. Any brand, does not have to be Philadelphia, block cream cheese is what you want. I knew the answer to this because a few years ago I tried to make a cheesecake in Ireland and it never set. So block cream cheese is what you want. My next carrot cake related question is what can we use instead of eggs? And this applies to any of my carrot cake recipes. You can use a flax egg, which always works out great. Or you can use something like cream cheese or applesauce. Those work really well. I love flax egg because it's a little bit stiffer. It gives you like a firmer texture, but sour cream or applesauce, mashed banana, those will work really well too. I will tell you to go to biggerbolderbaking.com, check out my egg substitute chart, one of the most looked at on the internet, and that will give you all your answers. That's it for my bold baking hotline questions for today. If you have questions, comment below and you might be featured in an upcoming video. Now let's check on our cake. Here it is, our beautiful little cake. So we can tell it's done. It pulled a little bit away from the sides, which when you're looking at a cake, if it's done, that's a good telltale sign. And it's firm under our fingertip. It smells so fragrant and lovely. You know, in Irish baking, we use a lot of spices around the holidays and in the winter time. But when it comes to the spring, like these spices and the mixture of carrots as well, just really scream spring to me and comfort. So let's set this cake over to the side to cool down and we will make our cream cheese frosting. This little cream cheese frosting is really easy to make because you do not need to use a stand mixer to whip the butter and the sugar and all those things. We're going to do it by hand, just like the way we did the cake, making this recipe even more accessible and easy. So in my little bowl. So here I have my block cream cheese. Look at that. It has been softened. One way you can do this is pop it into the microwave for a few seconds. Not that long at all. You're not trying to melt it or you can leave it sitting at room temperature for an hour. And that really helps too. It can't be cold coming from the fridge because that will give you lumps and it'll be really hard to get those out of there. Here also for the butter, same deal, softened. Leave both of them sitting at room temperature. Look how soft that is. This will make it easy to combine into the softened cream cheese and easy for us to beat by hand. Here we have a little whisky whisk. I'm going to cream those together. Just cream them together until they're just combined. Nice and smooth. Into this we're going to add in our vanilla, which I just have to have in a cream cheese frosting. A little bit of milk. You can use any type of milk that you want. You can also use half and half, which is a little bit richer. Give that a mix together. We're not adding salt into this and I'll tell you why. Cream cheese is already a little bit salty and you get that extra flavor from that. Also the fat. Now into this we are going to add in powdered sugar. Please make sure that it is sifted so it's nice and light and you don't end up with any lumps. Once your powdered sugar is in there, you should have smooth frosting just like this. And because of the cream cheese that we used, it'll be nice and firm and the perfect consistency to go on your cake. So that's your frosting. Could not be simpler. We also have our cake. It has cooled down. Now it's time to decorate and enjoy. Sticking with simplicity, to decorate this carrot cake, I'm going to smear the cream cheese frosting on top, just in one lovely rustic layer. Lastly, I'm going to garnish with a few extra toasted walnuts on top. This little cake is a reminder that keeping it easy can still yield you beautiful, elegant results just like this. Don't be fooled by this cake size. It still yields big and bold results and you will see that when you cut into it and taste it. A beautiful, tender cake, really moist, lovely texture and loaded with flavor. And a win for me and my small family of three. Everybody gets a slice and there's no waste. If you liked this video for a small batch carrot cake, then stick around. I have hundreds of videos for you to check out. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you back here again really soon.