Hello everyone!
Welcome back for Week 17! This week, we’re sticking with the Traybakes and Flapjacks chapter, and we’re making the American Spiced Carrot Traybake! Essentially, this is just a carrot cake in a traybake form with a cream cheese frosting – sounds yummy to me!
I again have to preface this week with the fact that I’ve been a little scatterbrained recently, so the blogs this week and next may be a little shorter than most. I also have been forgetting to take pictures of the batter before it goes in the oven, so please bear with me!!
As I discussed last week, these traybakes are mostly going to be dump cakes, which I love! This one had a little variation where it requires you to mix all the dry ingredients, then add in the wet ingredients one by one, stirring the mixture in between each. It took maybe two or three extra minutes, so it was super easy!
I did modify the recipe a little bit by using all-purpose flour instead of self-rising, and I used 1.5 tsp of baking powder instead of 2 tsp, considering that worked well last week. I also used pre-grated carrots (I just grabbed a bag while I was at Walmart) instead of grating them myself. It didn’t say “freshly grated carrots” in the recipe, so I decided it was fine.
The batter ended up being a little thinner than I expected, but looking back at the carrot cake in Week 7, I realized it had a thin batter too, so I figure that’s just how carrot cake batter is supposed to be. It had a very strong cinnamon flavor, with a little bit of vanilla, so I was excited to see how it turned out!
The recipe calls for 50-60 minutes in the oven, but I ended up checking it at 40 minutes and it was done! It tells you to let the cake cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning it out onto a cooling rack and letting it cool completely. I think changing the types of flour and amount of baking powder is the key to no sinking (at least for the traybakes), because this bake, just like last week, rose beautifully!!
Next on the to-do list was the cream cheese frosting, which was just cream cheese, honey, and lemon juice mixed together until it was a fluffy spreading consistency. The recipe does say to add a little more lemon juice if it’s not thin enough to spread, but I didn’t need to add any to mine.
Overall, I’d give this recipe a 5/5! The cake was nice and moist, and the chopped nuts add a really nice texture. The frosting has a little more bite from the cream cheese, which I personally enjoy very much out of cream cheese frostings. The ginger and cinnamon balance extremely well with the bits of carrot! I went a little heavy with the crushed nuts on top, but I can never do things in small amounts when it comes to food, ha-ha!
This recipe is super simple to make, adds a little extra oomph compared to last week’s bake, and it’s absolutely delicious! I would 100% suggest making this for a bridal shower, birthday party, housewarming gift, whatever you can think of! The recipe says to cut it into 21 pieces, and after cutting them a little too big last week, I was able to get 24 reasonably-sized pieces. (I really don’t understand why you would want an odd number of pieces instead of a more pleasant even number, but maybe that’s normal over in England, ha-ha!)
Thank you again for your patience with me for a little while, and don’t forget to check back in next week for a brand new bake!
That’s it for week 17, the American Spiced Carrot Traybake! Thank you for following along with me, and, again, if you have any questions, feel free to use the “Get in Touch” feature on my “About Me” page and subscribe to get updates on posts!
See you next week!
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