Ask a Chef reveals the secrets of those superb dishes you ate in cafes and restaurants and wanted to try yourself.
Slow-cooked carrot cake with pure cream
Ingredients
380g plain flour
3 tsp baking soda
1½ tsp table salt
3 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp cinnamon
6 free-range eggs
250g soft brown sugar
450g white sugar
450ml sunflower oil
300g carrots, peeled and grated
100g walnut pieces
100g whole natural almonds, roughly chopped)
200g crushed pineapple (unsweetened)
Cream cheese icing
150g cream cheese
150g unsalted butter, softened
2¼ cups icing sugar
zest of 1 lemon
Method
Preheat oven to 150degC.
Place all ingredients in a mixing bowl and beat on slow speed for 1 minute. Increase speed to medium/high for 2 to 3 minutes. Pour batter into a greased and baking paper-lined round 28cm cake tin with removable base.
Place into oven and cook for 1 hour and 45 minutes or until skewer or knife comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before icing with cream cheese icing. Keeps for up to 1 week.
Cream cheese icing
Place all ingredients in a mixing bowl and beat on medium/high speed for 3 to 4 minutes until pale and fluffy.
Recipe requested by Anne Hudson-Ramage, Dunedin
Recipe provided by Bevan Smith of Riverstone Kitchen
If you have enjoyed a dish in an Otago cafe or restaurant and would like the recipe, write to Ask a Chef, Features, Otago Daily Times, PO Box 181, Dunedin, fax 474-7422, or email odt.features@odt.co.nz, including your name, address and a daytime telephone number, and we will request it.
