Carrot and Ginger Loaf

I've just seen on Facebook that today is National Carrot Cake Day (although that may be only in the USA)! It's just a coincidence that I have a carrot cake recipe to write about, as I didn't know this important day was imminent when I made the cake. If these special days are to be truly celebrated we really need advance warning that they are happening!

I chose this carrot and ginger loaf recipe as a change from my usual carrot cake recipe, and I was very pleased with it. This is really a gingerbread with added carrots, as the method shows - melting sugar, syrups and butter together is traditional for gingerbread - and the ginger flavour was warm and comforting, and well balanced against the citrus zest added. 

I used a bit less zest than specified in the recipe, as I only had half an orange and had cut about 1/3 off the lemon for other purposes, but this was still enough to be noticeable, particularly in the frosting.  I decided that I didn't want to frost the whole loaf, as in the recipe, so cut down the glacé icing by 1/3, and just covered the top of the loaf.

The use of chopped stem ginger rather than nuts or dried vine fruits also contributed to the feeling that this was a gingerbread, rather than a carrot cake, although the finely grated carrots made the texture of the loaf lighter than a traditional gingerbread.

This is definitely one to add to the 'worth repeating' list of cakes!

Chocolate Ripple Pound Cake - made with olive oil

This is a beautiful cake when served - I don't think I could have made the ripples this way by planning! It was also far too big for my bundt tin; when I make it again I'm going to reduce it by 20% - use 4 eggs instead of 5 and reduce everything else accordingly.The flavours are also very subtle and need a bit more oomph - it needs more orange zest  in the plain cake and more black pepper (or maybe chilli instead) in the chocolate ripples - but the texture is very good, one of the best I've achieved with a cake made with oil.

Amazingly, I was about 20 pages into a Google search before I came across this recipe by Alice Medrich, which was developed for an Olive Oil producer in California. There are other recipes on the site which seem worth exploring too.

My cake didn't look much like the one in the photo accompanying the recipe, but it certainly made up for it's deceptively plain look when cut! Because the chocolate flavoured batter was thicker and denser than the plain batter, it didn't spread out evenly on top of the plain batter when poured into the bundt pan. Instead it sank into the previous layers without getting anywhere near the sides of the pan. I was a bit worried by this at the time, but it was too late to do anything about it - next time I may make the cocoa mix a little thinner.

However, as I've said, the end result were these amazing ripples through the cake! I relieved the plainess of the outside of the cake, and covered a few patches where the tin was over-floured, with an orange flavoured glacé icing, but I think a dusting of icing sugar would have been  just as good.

With a few tweaks to the size and the flavour, this will be a really good cake. I will certainly be using the recipe again, and perhaps experimenting with different flavours. 

I used a very mild olive oil, for reasons of economy, but it might be worth making the cake with a more strongly flavoured EVOO, to see if the stronger flavour of a better oil has much impact on the cake.

Black Pepper Rye Bread

It seems a long time since I last posted, although it's not that long since I last baked. The cake tin has been kept filled with goodies using recipes I've already posted (mainly brownies), and I've also had one or two failures which weren't worth mentioning. The failures were mostly part of my quest to produce a gluten and dairy free menu for a meal for 10 at the beginning of next month. I'm tempted to give up on the idea of gluten free baking, but it's a matter of personal honour now that I will produce something edible! What I have given up on is the idea of depriving everyone of good bread just because two guests don't eat wheat, so although most of the meal will be dairy and gluten free, some elements of the meal will be 'normal'.

This recipe from Dan Lepard for Black Pepper Rye Bread caught my eye at the weekend, as a possibility to serve with smoked mackerel paté. I love rye bread, and this loaf promised to be light and moist, with a good kick from the pepper - sounded just right.

My first attempt was a disaster in terms of texture - it was dry, heavy and hardly rose at all - but I wasn't sure whether it was my technique or whether my dried yeast had died in storage. The flavour, however, was wonderful, just what I needed to fire up the tastebuds at the start of the meal, so I didn't want to give up on the recipe. As ever, Dan was very helpful on his website, suggesting where I might be going wrong, and he even baked the recipe again, and published a set of photographs for future guidance.



The second attempt, pictured above, was much better; the loaf was lighter, moister and rose well. I didn't have any poppy or sesame seeds to top the loaf with, so just gave it an egg wash and a light sprinkle of caraway seeds, which was what I'd used in the loaf with the black pepper. I took Dan's advice to cook the rye and spice mix less, and also took the precaution of buying new yeast, but now it's frustrating not to know if it was the yeast or the change in technique which made the difference. I know that you shouldn't really change two things at the same time if you're trying to get to the root of a problem, but I didn't want another failure.