Afternoon tea party

Here’s a lovely cake suggestion for an afternoon tea party. Spiced carrot and pistachio cake from Susan Blake’s Afternoon tea parties.

There’s something comfortng and homely about carrot cake. This one has a lemony cream cheese frosting and a dense moist crumb.

Recipe:
225g self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
150ml sunflower oil
3 eggs
200g soft light brown sugar
350g grated carrot
Grated zest of 1 unwaxed orange
60g roasted, unsalted pistachio nuts, roughly chopped
a 20 cm cake tine, greased and lined with greaseproof paper.

For the frosting and to decorate:
200g cream cheese
75g icing sugar
1 & 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
Grated zest of 1 lemon
Chopped unsalted pistachio nuts

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180c.

Sift the flour, baking powder and spices into a large bowl and make a well in the centre. In a separate bowl, beat together the oil, eggs and sugar. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients and fold together. Add the grated carrot, orange zest and nuts. Mix! Mix! Mix!

Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin, level out the surface and bake in the preheated oven for about 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out on to a wire rack to cool.

To make the frosting, beat together the cream cheese, icing sugar, lemon juice and zest until smooth and creamy. Spread over the cooled cake.

Voilà!