CARROT CAKE with CREAM CHEESE FILLING

After a long time hunting and searching for a good carrot cake recipe, I watched Chuckmas in AFC channel yesterday and saw Chuck baking Carrot cake...

Ahaaaa... Tats it.. Today went to Sunshine and hunt for all the ingredients...
After months of working.. baking is indeed the best therapy..

This is basically recipe from Chuck Hughes (the great chef from Chuck's Day Off show). However, I did make some modifications to the recipe according to family preferences. Since we are still in vegetarian mode, I transformed this cake into eggless carrot cake.

The result: Not bad for a first timer. Needs some improvement but it is worth baking.The photo is not so nice. Still learning to snap good photos for blogging.
Here goes the recipe. The modifications are in yellow.

CARROT CAKE

Ingredients

• Cake:
• 2 cups/500 ml all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon/15 ml baking powder
• 2 teaspoons/10 ml baking soda
• 1 teaspoon/5 ml ground cinnamon (Increased to 2 tsp)
• 1/2 teaspoon/ 2.5 ml allspice (omitted because I could not find it)
• 1/2 teaspoon/ 2.5 ml ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon/ 2.5 ml ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon/ 2.5 ml salt
• 1 1/2 cups/375 ml sugar
• 1 cup/250 ml canola oil
• 4 eggs (Substitute each egg with 1 tbsp flour, 1/2 tbsp butter, 1/2 tsp baking power and 3 tbsp water)
• 3 cups/750 ml peeled and grated carrots
• 1 cup/250 ml chopped pineapple (omitted)

• 1 cup/250 ml walnuts, coarsely chopped (100gms)
• 1/2 cup/125 ml dried cherries (100gms)
• 1/2 cup/125 ml dried golden raisins (100gms)
• Frosting:
• 2 packages cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup/125 ml butter, softened
• 2 1/2 cups/625 ml icing sugar
• Zest and juice of 1 orange
• Maple Walnuts:
• 1/2 cup/125 ml maple syrup (I used 100ml Golden Syrup)
• 1 cup/250 ml toasted walnuts

Directions

For the cake: With the rack in the middle position, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C). Line two 8-inch (20-cm) springform pans with parchment paper.

In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg and salt. Set aside.

In another bowl, combine the sugar, oil and eggs with a whisk. Gently stir in the dry ingredients. With a spatula, gently fold in the carrots, pineapple, walnuts, cherries and raisins.

Divide the batter between the pans. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, about 1 hour ( I baked for 40 minutes only- 170 degrees C) . Cool in the pans on a rack. Run the blade of a knife around the cakes and unmold.

For the frosting: In a bowl, cream the cream cheese with the butter and icing sugar with an electric mixer. Add the zest and juice and continue beating until the frosting is smooth and creamy.

Spread the frosting over the top of the cakes and stack them on a platter.

For the maple walnuts: In a skillet, bring the syrup to a boil. Add the walnuts and stir continuously until the syrup has crystallized around the walnuts. Pour onto a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and let cool. Garnish the cake.