Carrot Cake – Rachel Allen

It was my mum’s birthday last month and I know one of her favourite cakes is the ‘Carrot Cake’. This recipe is from Rachel Allen’s Bake cookbook and it is really simple to make! The longest task was grating all the carrots! I think for next time if I am making a carrot cake, I will just buy the grated carrots in the packets from the supermarkets as I hate grating! :p

For the icing, I would use halve the quantities from the below as suggested from her book as I had so much icing leftover, that there was enough to make another carrot cake! You can also use the icing to decorate your cupcakes.

Ingredients:

• 2 x eggs
• 140ml sunflower/vegetable oil
• 200g soft light brown sugar
• 300g grated carrots
• 100g raisins
• 75g pecan/walnuts chopped up (optional)
• 180g Self-raising flour sieved
• Half teaspoon of bio carbonate of soda
• 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• Half teaspoon nutmeg
• Half teaspoon of mixed spice
• Pinch of salt

For the Icing (if you don’t want too much icing, then use half of the quantities below):

• 250g cream cheese (from the fridge)
• 50g butter softened
• 1 x tsp vanilla extract
• Zest of 1 orange
• 275g icing sugar sieved

Method:

1. Line the loaf tin and preheat the oven to GM2 at 150 degrees.
2. Whisk the egg first and then add the oil. Pour in the sugar and mix with the carrots, raisins and chopped nuts.
3. Sift in the dry ingredients and bring the mixture together.
4. Pour into the loaf tin and bake for an hour and 15 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean with no crumbs.
5. Leave in the tin to cool for about 5 minutes and then pop it onto a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Make the icing by beating the cream cheese and butter until soft, then add the icing sugar, vanilla extract and orange zest and mix to combine. Once the cake is cooled, spread the icing. It should be smooth and thick. Cut into slices to serve.

Sausage, Chorizo with Halloumi and Roasted Peppers

Nigella is one of my favourite cook author and I have purchased many of her cooking books! One of my favourite recipe is from her ‘Nigella Express’ book is the ‘Merguez with Halloumi and Flame -Roasted Peppers’. This is such a simple dish to make and prep so I always make sure that I have a jar of roasted peppers in my pantry and have the halloumi and chorizo in my fridge as they have a longer fridge life. I remembered when I first looked at this recipe, I couldn’t find any Merguez which is a spicy sausage so I used Chorizo instead and include a few pork sausages in the dish as well as we love our meats! 🙂 I have made a few adjustments to her recipe.

Ingredients: 1 chorizo sliced up, 6 – 8 pack of sausages of your choice, 1 block of Halloumi cheese, 1 jar of Roasted Red Peppers and 2 x tbs of oil, 1 x tsp lazy garlic, 1 x tsp of mixed herbs and 1 x tsp oregano.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven the Gas Mark 7 and put all the sausages in a big roasting tin with the oil. Cook for approx. 10 minutes so that the sausages are abit browned.
2. Cut the halloumi in to 5mm slices and lay them around the sausages, take the peppers out and put them around the cheese and sausages. You might want to cut them into smaller pieces and drizzle the oil on top of everything and sprinkle all the herbs.
3. Cook for 20 minutes or until when the sausages is cooked. Serve with some crusty bread and salad.

Sometimes, I add some boiled potatoes in the tin and roast them with all the other ingredients. Makes the dish more filling and we have this with bread because there are a lot of juices. We normally have left overs for the next day, and it taste even better as all the flavours are absorbed.

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