Recipe by Lúcia Dos Ramos
See more of Lúcia’s creations: instagram.com/lucygabi
Lúcia's Baked Spicy Carrot Halwa Cake
Winning Viewer Recipe
A carrot semolina sponge with crushed cardamom and cinnamon, doused in a saffron and cardamom glaze. Three layers of sponge wedged together with a sweet vanilla cream. A cream cheese frosting covers the cake. This semi-naked cake is crowned with snapdragon flowers and sprinkled with crushed pistachios.
Cake
2 eggs
1 cup yoghurt
2 carrots peeled and chopped roughly
2/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup semolina
1 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 cup self raising flour
1/2 tsp Royal Baking Powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/3 cup ground almonds
100ml oil
- Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease 15cm cake pan (grease three 15cm cake pans if you would like to make three tiers).
- In a food processor, blitz the carrots
- In a medium bowl, add blitzed carrots and yoghurt and mix together.
- In a bowl of a stand mixer, mix together eggs, yoghurt/carrot mix, sugar, ground cardamom, cinnamon, semolina powder, oil and ground almonds.
- Sift in self raising flour and Royal Baking Powder and mix.
- Pour mixture into the 15cm greased cake pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean, on 180°C.
- Once cake has baked, remove from tin and allow to cool for 10 minutes.
* I quantified (multiplied) the ingredients by three to make a three-tiered cake.
Saffron & Cardamom Glaze
1/3 cup castor sugar
1 tin evaporated milk
Pinch of saffron
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
- Using a stick blender, mix together castor sugar, evaporated milk, saffron and cardamon in a bowl.
- Gently pour glaze over cooled cake.
- Allow the cake to cool, thereafter refrigerate.
* I quantified (multiplied) the recipe by three to make a three-tiered cake.
Sweet Vanilla Cream
1 1/2 cups whipping cream
3 tblsp castor sugar
2 tsp vanilla
- In a medium bowl using a hand mixer, whip together cream, castor sugar and vanilla and spread over cooled cake.
Cream Cheese Icing
80g butter or margarine, softened
2 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla essence
125g smooth cream cheese
* I quantified (multiplied) the ingredients by two to ice a three tiered cake.
- Cream butter and icing sugar together in a bowl using a hand mixer.
- Add vanilla essence and incorporate the cream cheese lightly until just smooth.
- Do not over-mix.
Assembly
- Ice the top and outside of cake using a spatula.
- Sprinkle with pistachios & gently place snapdragon flowers on top of cake as you see fit.
- Slice the cake and serve.
- Best served at room temperature.