Carrot and Earl Grey Tea Loaf

This recipe was in the November issue of Sainsbury's Magazine, nestled in an article about Kenyan tea. I eventually found my way to the magazine's website, and the recipe is available there, too, although you can see I baked the cake in a loaf shape rather than as a round cake, and didn't add such a fancy decoration. 

I didn't have any Kenyan tea, but did have Earl Grey, and I thought the citrus-y flavour of that would go well with carrot, as oranges are often used in carrot cakes. Once the carrots were grated, the cake was quick and easy to put together, and took around 45 minutes to bake in my long, shallow loaf tin.

I liked the fact that the cake was quite low in added sugar, when I read the recipe, but felt on tasting it, that the cake really needed more sugar to overcome the bitter notes of the tea. The flavour was quite bland too; the small amount of cinnamon didn't add much flavour, and none of the other ingredients improved things. On the plus side, the texture was quite moist but still light. This cake would have benefitted from some of the more traditional carrot cake ingredients - orange zest, chopped nuts, sultanas or more spice. It certainly wasn't memorable enough to make again as it is!