I decided to give the carrot cake recipe in the violet bakery cookbook a fruity makeover by adding berries and stone fruits like apricots and nectarines. I used coconut for the frosting, i used half carrot and half parsnip and it tasted wonderful. I could not find my large cake tins so I made this three tiered cake with my small tins of assorted sizes. it ending up looking quite fancy for a humble carrot cake but don’t worry this recipe is meant for two 23cm tins.
I have made this cake before and I added orange it was also really tasty click here to see it
fruity carrot and parsnip cake with apricots, nectarines and berries
Ingredients
- 250g grated carrots and parsnip 2 cups (about 2 large carrots and 1 large parsnip)
- 100g 3/4 cup dessicated coconut
- 100g 1 cup pecans toasted and chopped fine
- 400g vegetable oil I used olive oil (after doing some research i found that 224g is 1 cup so it would be about 1 and 3/4 cup?)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 400g 2 cup caster sugar
- 2 eggs 2 yokes
- 4 egg whites
- 320g 2 and half cups plus 2 tbsp plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- handful of blueberries
- 3 apricots 2 nectarines chopped into small chunks
- 10 blackberries
- ……..
- frosting
- 600ml double cream
- 5 tbsp coconut cream
- 5 tbsp icing sugar
- apricot jam
- blueberry jam
- sliced nectarines
- sliced apricots
- desiccated and flaked coconut
- ground cherries
- pecans
- berries
Instructions
- preheat the oven to 170c or 150 fan
- in bowl whip together 200g of the sugar with the two eggs and two yokes, and the oil, then add the vanilla. add the grated carrots and parsnip and the chopped nuts,
- in another clean bowl whip the egg whites with the other 200g of caster sugar until thick peaks form,
- soft the flour, salt, baking powder and soda into the bowl with the carrot mixture and mix until barely combined.
- fold in the whipped egg whites into the carrot mixture until well combined, then fold in the berries and chopped up nectarines and apricots
- pour between two 23cm cake tins or I used 1 15cm 2 11cm and 1 9cm
- bake for 1 hour.
- for frosting mix the cream, coconut cream and icing sugar until thick then assemble the cake I used blueberry jam on one layer and apricot on another and added sliced nectarines and apricots between the layers.
- I decorated it with desiccated coconut and toasted flakes of coconut and fresh coconut and berries and apricot, nectarines and ground cherries.
Absolutely stunning!
Thankyou so much x
What a gorgeous layer cake! I just love your photographs here, with all the fresh fruits and nuts and such 🙂
Thankyou x
Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous! do you have a garden at home?? i absolutely love the blackberry vines in these shots!
Thankyou I picked them from a bush down the road i had a blackberry bush in the garden but it got cut down last year xxx