Carrot Cake and Cream Cheese Bundt with Lemon drizzle icing

This Cream Cheese Carrot Bundt Cake designed by Donna Hay, is filled with an irresistible cream cheese frosting, the same frosting which is generally reserved for icing the cake with and which everyone loves. Instead, we have baked it in the middle of the cake, where it transforms into the dreamiest, lemony cheesecake filling. Combined with sweet, grated carrot and chopped pecans or walnuts, and generously spiced with ground cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, this cake will also make a delicious dessert. 

 I have baked and eaten many carrot cakes over the years and enjoyed most of them, however this is the only carrot cake recipe you will need in your life! Two layers of very soft cake are delicately spiced (I might have added a little more ginger because we love it), and studded with soft nuts, then each layer is separated by the most heavenly lemony cream cheese filling. This cake will suit any occasion you can think of, however it is a large cake, so definitely bake it for a special occasion.

This cake is taken from Donna Hay's beautiful new cookbook, which I could wax lyrically over for hours. I just had to share this recipe with you.

 When I saw this recipe, I was excited and had to accept the challenge of baking a cake with a cheesecake layer through the middle, instead of as the usual cream cheese frosting topping. I'm so glad I did. However, because of how recipe books are often constructed, I was flicking between different sections of the recipe in the book for the cake batter, and the cream cheese frosting and somehow, I missed the small note to halve the cream cheese frosting for the bundt cake. I didn't realise until the cake was baked and some of the cheesecake frosting was spreading out from the middle. Oops, I am very capable of making these kinds of mistakes. So, Mr. HRK tidied it up for me around the edges very delicately, and you wouldn't even know, would you? Can you really have too much cream cheese frosting anyway? Be assured, I have given you all of the correct measurements for this bundt cake recipe.

Ingredients:

Serves 10 - 12 people.

1/2 cup (125 ml) grapeseed oil or vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 1/4 cups (300 g) firmly packed brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups (300 g) firmly packed grated carrot (about 3 carrots)

1 3/4 cups (260 g) plain (all-purpose) flour + 1/2 cup of extra sifted plain flour for a bundt cake

2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg, freshly grated whole nutmegs gives the best flavour

1/2 cup (125 g) plain thick yoghurt

1 cup (100 g) very fresh pecans or walnuts, roughly chopped (I used pecans this time)

Cream Cheese Frosting (not optional) for this recipe

250 g cream cheese, chopped and softened

55 g pure icing sugar (confectioner's) sugar, sifted

30 ml lemon juice (1/8th cup)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method for cream cheese frosting:

Place the cream cheese, icing sugar, lemon juice, and vanilla in a bowl, and mix with a handheld mixer, or in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until smooth.

Method:

Preheat oven to 160 deg. C (325 deg. F). Grease a 3-litre capacity bundt tin. This was the largest one I had, and the cake needed it. See cooking notes below on greasing your bundt tin, this is very important. *

Using the whisk attachment, I actually used the paddle, and it was ok, place the eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla in the bowl of your electric mixer. Whisk on high speed for 8 minutes or until thick. It will be very well mixed. Remove the bowl from your mixer, fold in the grated carrot.

Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and ginger over the batter in your mixer bowl. Add the grated nutmeg, yoghurt, and walnuts and stir to combine.

Add an extra 1/2 cup plain sifted flour to your mixing bowl. This gives the batter more of a bundt cake consistency.

Remove your bundt tin from the refrigerator. Pour two-thirds of the cake mixture into the bundt tin and then add the cream cheese frosting to the centre of the batter all the way around.

Top with the remaining cake mixture.

Bake the cake for 45-50 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Let the cake cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then invert the tin onto a wire rack and allow to stand for a further 10 minutes with the cake still in the tin.

Gently remove the cake from the tin onto a sheet of baking paper on the cooling rack, and patiently allow it to cool completely. 

This cake doesn't need any extra adornment, the cheesecake filling works its magic, however I like it to look pretty and dressed for that special occasion. It could be dusted with just a sprinkling of icing sugar if the weather was even cooler here, but working in the humidity the icing sugar just melts into the cake. So, I decided to top it with a lemon drizzle icing and some chopped pecans, which was perfect. Edible flowers placed on icing sugar or lemon icing are always a lovely way to present a cake as well for special occasions.

Lemon Drizzle Icing on the cake (optional) but lovely:

1 1/2 cups (225g) icing sugar, sifted

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon melted butter

Method:  

Sift the icing sugar, add the melted butter, then add the lemon juice gradually, in a small bowl until you have a soft, drizzling consistency, then drizzle over the cake. Top with chopped pecans or walnuts.

My cooking notes:

*To grease a bundt cake tin, using a pastry brush, brush it with softened butter in every crevice, and refrigerate the tin until the butter is set. If you do this before you start organising to make your cake, the butter should be set, and the tin should be ready to fill by the time the batter is mixed. This worked beautifully for me. The cake lifted out of the tin instantly.

Butter chilled and set in the refrigerator.

• Let the bundt cake stand, inverted, on your wire cooling rack, this will help it to release from the tin easily. 
• This is a large cake, which feeds 10-12 people, suitable for a special occasion
• I used Grapeseed oil instead of vegetable oil
• Using freshly ground aromatic nutmeg is a game changer, and it doesn't take long. However, use bottled ground nutmeg if that's all you have.
• The basic carrot cake ingredients and method without the extra 1/2 cup of flour also makes 2 carrot cakes to suit two x 20 cm (8 inch) round cake tins. It's a very versatile carrot cake recipe.
• My largest bundt cake tin didn't have much profile or design to it, so the shape wasn't affected that much by the style of the tin. The tin was also a dark metal colour, which means it doesn't need to cook as long. Dark metal absorbs more heat than lighter coloured metal. A cake cooking in your lighter coloured bundt cake tin may take longer to cook than in a dark tin. Not that much longer, but it's something to be aware of. 
• Please only use full fat cream cheese

Where has this week disappeared to? I made this delicious cake on Monday, served it up to 8 Mahjong ladies on Tuesday, and then life got busy and it's Friday tomorrow. I need to finish this post tonight. A few slices are now in the freezer, for those days when we really need some cake, and I gave my neighbour a slice. It will freeze beautifully.

Disappearing fast

Here's the link to another Classic Carrot cake (photo below) which I made a while ago for a friend's special birthday and decorated it with flowers and strawberries. It wasn't a Bundt cake, but it was still a lovely cake.

Warm wishes and I hope you have a special weekend.

Pauline