Yesterday was cold - cold and a bit cloudy. Just the day to sit by the fire watching daytime TV and not doing much at all. Suddenly I had this thought that I had some carrots that needed eating up. And some eggs with a 'sell by' date a few days ago and a 'use by' date imminent. What made me put the 2 together and come up with carrot cake I don't know, but a River Cottage Everyday 'Treat' felt just right so I padded off away from the fire into the kitchen to seek out the recipe and make it.
I whisked up my just-in-date eggs with granulated sugar, as I didn't have caster. Then I added the oil and made this gorgeous frothy pale yellow concoction. Next I had to find the flour and to my dismay I hardly had any white self raising flour - least of all wholemeal. So I used the rest of the white and added some organic wholemeal plain flour and a couple of teaspoons of baking powder (out of date by some 2 or maybe 3 years...). So far so good. I had this thing that carrot cake should by spicy so I gaily sprinkled in plenty of mixed spice. Then I grated up the 3 carrots that had been languishing in the fridge and threw the lot into the oven and went off to watch an episode of Spooks that we had on DVD. The cake and Spooks ended at about the same time. Just perfect...
This episode made me think about the difference between home made and shop bought cakes. I'm sure that if I made this cake again it would be subtly, in not totally, different. And this one is interesting to eat. When it's cooked you pour melted honey on it, rather like a lemon drizzle cake, and this leaves it with a glazed and slightly sweet top. The cake itself isn't very sweet but is moist but with this little kick from the sweetness and slight crunchiness on the top. So every mouthful is unlike the last one. Shop bought cakes tend to be uniform and everyone you buy is just like the last one. You may love it once, twice, even three times, but then it gets just too samey.
This is a really easy cake to make - I don't think it can fail, even with the wrong sugar, the wrong flour a few changes to the ingredients and some sadly not too fresh eggs and carrots. Only when I glanced at the recipe to find out how long it would take to cook did I notice that it was a cake for 12-14 servings. Whoops - there are only 2 of us!
What is this obsession with spelt? This strange ingredient has
suddenly appeared on supermarket shelves, presumably in response to
all the food writers who seem to adore what Wikipedia introduces as a
‘hexaploid species of wheat’. According to the same source you’ve been
able to buy spelt from the supermarket for nearly five years now,
although products made from the stuff can only really be bought from
health food shops. I couldn’t wait to try Tristan on the Spelt and
Apple Stars (note that organic baby biscuits are horribly expensive,
even more so when you consider that half the biscuit will end up as a
crumb on your nicely hoovered floor) in the Baby & Toddler Cookbook
and, although my mother was sure that any old flour would do really, I
determined (this time) to follow Hugh’s recipe to the letter. Living
within walking distance of an Asda, Sainsbury’s and 24 Hour Tesco I
thought it would be piece of cake finding what Hugh specified as
‘unrefined spelt flour’. My quest was unsuccessful however, and
although I did manage to find spelt flour at all three supermarkets,
the place to buy ‘unrefined’ spelt flour remained something of a
mystery. Anyway I didn’t need to look any further than Arjuna on
Cambridge’s Mill Road.
Arjuna is the kind of store that I used to run a mile from, assuming
that they only stocked muesli, incredibly expensive organic skincare
products and everything either gluten, wheat or taste free. However on
the day I decided to make the short walk from my house down Mill Road
to Arjuna (note that my previous pram wouldn’t actually fit through
the door very easily so the trip was only really possible when I had
invested in a lightweight buggy) I was in for a huge treat. I spent at
least twenty minutes in there, eyeing up the different kinds of flour,
chocolates, and lovely baby foods (I don’t especially like muesli so
their display was wasted a bit on me). Most things were much cheaper
than in the supermarket too – this was clearly the place to buy herbs
and spices, as well as porridge oats and exotic juices. Of course I
found my wholemeal spelt flour too and, after I had been to buy a
star-shaped cookie cutter (I told you I was following Hugh’s recipe
diligently this time), I rushed home to make the cookies. Tristan
loved them, and I decided to take them to his swimming lesson so he
could share them with his baby friends. They naturally gobbled them
all up so I had to make another batch. Thankfully though I now have
enough unrefined spelt flour to last until he’s old enough to eat and
enjoy custard creams.
