Birthdays are like buses in our house, we have none for ages and then loads come along at the same time. Eight days after the twins' birthday our eldest had her ninth birthday. Her choice of cake was a chocolate cake shaped as a carrot - i.e. a chocolate carrot cake! This set us a challenge so we dusted off Granny's chocolate recipe and gave it a go!
Rather than the usual 7" round cake tins we used two bread tins to bake the cake. To get the carrot shape we trimmed the sides of the cake to taper to a point and then used the triangular trimmings as the leaves.
The chocolate cake recipe we used is my Mum's and has been a family favourite for as long as I can remember. The sponge recipe can also be used to make excellent chocolate buns by cooking them in bun cases.
My Mum's recipe has chocolate icing and that is what I've included here however that wasn't going to cut it for this cake so we made green icing using green food colouring and orange icing by mixing red and yellow food colouring.
We turned this chocolate cake, quite literally into a carrot cake, you could just have it round of course!
Preheat the oven to 180C
Add the sugar and butter to a large bowl and mix until you get a smooth mixture
Add the eggs mixing them in individually
Sieve in the flour and cocoa, add the milk and mix well until all of the ingredients are mixed in thoroughly
Pour the mixture equally between the two tins which you have lined with baking parchment
Put in the oven for 25 minutes (we left them in for 30-35 minutes as the mixture was in the cake tins so it was thicker and needed longer to cook through)
When cooked, (you can tell it’s cooked by lightly touching the centre which should bounce back) take the cake out of the tin and place on a wire rack to cool
To make the filling place the butter in a bowl along with sieved icing sugar and cocoa. Mix well to make a smooth mixture
Smooth the filling over the one half of the cake and place the other half on top
Make the icing by sieving the icing sugar and cocoa and add the water a little at a time, mixing as you go, until you get a consistency this isn't too runny. Smooth the icing over the top of the cake and leave to dry and harden
Enjoy with a nice cold glass of milk!
Like the chocolate cake recipe and victoria sponge cake recipe we used for the twins' birthday cakes, the kids can do pretty much everything to bake this cake including the measuring, whisking and decorating. Adult supervision is required when putting the cake in and taking it out of the oven. We also helped with cutting the cake into the carrot shape.
Ingredients
Directions
Preheat the oven to 180C
Add the sugar and butter to a large bowl and mix until you get a smooth mixture
Add the eggs mixing them in individually
Sieve in the flour and cocoa, add the milk and mix well until all of the ingredients are mixed in thoroughly
Pour the mixture equally between the two tins which you have lined with baking parchment
Put in the oven for 25 minutes (we left them in for 30-35 minutes as the mixture was in the cake tins so it was thicker and needed longer to cook through)
When cooked, (you can tell it’s cooked by lightly touching the centre which should bounce back) take the cake out of the tin and place on a wire rack to cool
To make the filling place the butter in a bowl along with sieved icing sugar and cocoa. Mix well to make a smooth mixture
Smooth the filling over the one half of the cake and place the other half on top
Make the icing by sieving the icing sugar and cocoa and add the water a little at a time, mixing as you go, until you get a consistency this isn't too runny. Smooth the icing over the top of the cake and leave to dry and harden
Enjoy with a nice cold glass of milk!
