Carrot cake, carrot cake & Carrot Cake!

Ok, so everyone has their favourite carrot cake recipe, but there's no harm in trying different ones - especially if for some silly reason you can't remember which recipe book has your favourite carrot cake recipe in, or you've gone through all your recipe books already and, unaware of course, have turned over two pages - the one with the treasured carrot cake recipe!

So I tried the recipe from Grandma's Best Recipes (I think it's been updated since I bought mine at ASDA about 3 years ago!)

'Grandma's' Classic Carrot Cake' (serves 12)
125g self-raising flour
pinch of salt
1t ground cinnamon
125g soft brown sugar
2 eggs
100ml sunflower oil
125g carrot, peeled and finely grated
25g desiccated coconut
25g walnuts chopped
walnut pieces to decorate
Icing:  50g softened butter; 50g soft cheese; 225g icing sugar; 1t lemon juice.

First problem - no self-raising flour, fortunately good old baking powder is always willing to be used!

Second problem - no walnuts! Surely you can't make a carrot cake without walnuts?! Of course you can, especially if you substitute Almonds!!!


And if you look carefully that spice jar is empty!

1. Preheat oven to 180C and lightly grease a cake tin - I never measure to see if it's the right size! - line the base with baking paper - sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. If I had Spray & Cook of course I wouldn't be wiping butter papers over my cake tin or lining it!

2. Sift the flour - and the baking powder, 1 teaspoon for every cup of flour - salt & ground cinnamon and stir in the brown sugar.

3.  Add the eggs and oil and mix well.

4. Stir in the grated carrot - not very 'finely grated' this time! - desiccated coconut and chopped ....nuts!

5.  Pour into tin and bake 20-25mins.

6. Icing: Beat butter, soft cheese (Philly cheese!), icing sugar and lemon juice until the mixture is fluffy and creamy.

7. Turn the cake out of the tin, cut into squares and then spread the icing over. Decorate with .... nuts - or not!

(At least the picture looks good!)

 

 

 

 

The recipe I was really aiming for is the Mega carrot cake, the recipe was in the May 2009 Asda magazine.

Zest and juice of 1 large orange
175g sultanas
150g pecans, roughly chopped (not quite my substitute almonds!)
300g Self-raising flour
2 level tsps bicarbonate of soda
75g desiccated coconut
3 large eggs
250g light soft brown sugar
220ml sunflower oil
300g carrots (peeled weight) grated
Icing:
100g butter softened
100g icing sugar
1T lemon juice
few drops of vanilla extract
300g full fat soft and creamy cheese

1. Preheat oven to 160C and prepare cake tin (said it all before, you know what to do!)
2. Put the orange zest, 2T juice and the sultanas in a bowl and leave for 20 minutes.
3. Meanwhile put the nuts on a baking tray and cook in the oven for 8 minutes.
4. Sift the flour, spice and bicarb, add half the nuts and coconut.
5. Whisk eggs, sugar and oil until sugar starts to dissolve.
6. Stir in sultanas and juice, carrots and flour.
7. Bake in tin for 1 hour.

Icing:
Beat butter and icing sugar then stir in lemon juice, vanilla and cream cheese. Spread over the cake, sprinkle with nuts and then cut into slices.

This last recipe sounds more fiddly, but it's really moist and gooood!

Sweet Potato Tuna Jacket

This recipe was originally on BBC Good Food but of course I didn't have all the ingredients so more changes and ended up with another tasty dinner!

It took me quite a number of years - about 30 - to eventually buy, cook and eat Sweet Potatoes! They just didn't sound English enough for me way back then! The South African Sweet Potatoes however, seem to be different to what I am now buying back in the UK. 'English' Sweet Potatoes have a very orangey inside and seem to be much sweeter than I've had before!

The BBC recipe reads like this:
4 small sweet potatoes ( about 200g each)
185g can tuna in spring water, drained
1/2 red onion, finely sliced
1 small red chilli, deseeded and chopped
Juice of 1 lime
6T Greek yogurt
handful of coriander leaves.
1. Prick and microwave Sweet potatoes for 18-20 mins or until tender. Cut in half lengthways
2. Flake the drained tuna and arrange on the halved potatoes
3. Top with the red onion and chilli and squeeze over the lime juice.
4. Top with a dollop of yogurt and scatter the coriander over.

Needless to say, I'm not a chilli or lime fan so both those ingredients got dumped straight away!

For two of us:
1 sweet potato, scrubbed, pricked and microwaved until tender, turning halfway through the cooking. Put a small knob of butter in the potato and gently break up the potato 'flesh' in the jacket.

Mix & heat together gently in a pan : 
     1 can tuna, (I always buy in water)
     1/4 chopped or sliced onion - red does add colour but a white onion is just as good
     1/2 cup frozen peas
     sliced mushrooms
     2T (approx) of plain (Greek) yoghurt

Arrange the warmed tuna mix over the sweet potato, top with grated cheese and pop under the grill for a few moments.

Serve with your favourite salad.

Question: Yoghurt? Yogurt? !
Wikipedia:
In English, there are several variations of the spelling of the word, including yogurt, yoghurt, yoghourt, yogourt, yaghourt, yoghurd, joghourt, and jogourt. In the United Kingdom and Australia, yogurt and yoghurt are both current, yoghurt being more common while yogurt is used by the Australian and British dairy councils, and yoghourt is an uncommon alternative. In the United States, yogurt is the usual spelling and yoghurt a minor variant. In New Zealand, yoghurt is preferred by the New Zealand Oxford Dictionary.In Canada, yogurt is most common among English speakers, but many brands use yogourt, since it is an acceptable spelling in both English and French, the official languages of Canada.
Whatever the spelling, the word is usually pronounced with a short o (/ˈjɒɡət/) in the UK, with a long o (/ˈjoʊɡərt/) in North America, Australia, Ireland and South Africa, and with either a long or short o in New Zealand.

Mother's Chicken Salad

It may be rainy & a little cool outside but it's still summer and salads are summer food!

(Maybe it doesn't look appetising in the picture but it is really tasty!)

This recipe for "Mother's Chicken Salad" came from the South African Budget Beaters Recipe Book (which I don't have anymore) and is still as delicious as when I first made it for the family a couple of decades ago!

I no longer have the original quantities as the recipe I copied down simply had what I'd always used - approximate quantities, but here it is:

Diced COOKED chicken breasts - or left over chicken, or 3 chicken drumsticks cooked in chicken stock makes a decent size portion for two. 
1 Apple - peeled, diced
1 Stick of celery - sliced
1/2 small cucumber sliced and then quartered (to match 'diced'!)
2 'average' size potatoes, COOKED and diced or diced first and then boiled.
190ml pecan nuts - optional, this time I didn't have pecan nuts
4T chopped chives - optional, ditto
1 cup mayonnaise - or about 3T
1/2 cup evaporated milk
Salt & Pepper
2 hard boiled eggs to garnish - optional - I forgot the eggs this time!

Combine chicken, apple, celery, cucumber, cooked potatoes, nuts and chives and mix gently.
Mix the evap milk and mayo until smooth and pour this over the chicken.
Mix gently again, season, garnish, serve! I crumbled some Feta cheese over as well.
Easy!
Serve with something with colour as the chicken, apple and potato are all white and the green of the cucumber and celery isn't strong enough to show! It needs lettuce, rocket, tomatoes for colour.

It is really nice, just filling enough, but light enough to feel good!

Don't forget:  Give yourself TIME to COOK the chicken & potatoes beforehand - and hard boil the eggs!