Carrot and Poppyseed & Beetroot and Ginger Cake

I knew I was getting old when despite the warm weather at Green Man I abstained from my usual cider and developed an obsession   Tea and Cake stall- Cafe Dish who could resist tea in a proper up scones, ginger cake, & carrot cake since then I  have been wanting to get into some proper cake baking

Finally last weekend what finally got me off the sofa and weighing out ingredients was some furious tweetage from ,  Helen at Food Stories and Lizzie at Hollow Legs as they baked up a storm for their  MacMillan coffee morning a great idea where you host a coffee morning to raise money for MacMillan Cancer Relief, their site lets you find one close to you

Now we are not really allowed to cook anything anymore that doesn’t use something from the vegebox , so I opted to include some rood veggies , Beetroot and Carrot using recipes this  adapted from a BBC Good Food Recipe it’s unbelievably light and moist, but this time turned into those perfect for a coffee morning sandwich cakes.

If you leave the icing off these cakes will keep for longer and can be frozen.

I took the carrot cake into work to save my waistline , it looked slightly worse the wear for its train journey but was still demolished by our team not suprising given the 6 cups of tea each we drink .

Carrot Cake

175g light muscovado sugar
175ml sunflower oil
3 large eggs , lightly beaten
200g of grated carrots (about 4 medium)
3 tbsp of poppy seeds
Grated zest of 1 large orange
175g self-raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Icing
8 heaped tbsp of soft cheese
2 tbsp of icing sugar

1 tsp of poppy seeds to decorate

1. Preheat the oven to 180C , line two 8in round sandwich cake tin with baking paper
2. Beat together the sugar eggs and oil Stir in the grated carrots & poppy seeds
3. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices, then sift into the bowl. Lightly mix all the ingredients together
4. Split the mixture into the prepared tins and bake for 40- 45 minutes, until it feels firm Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn it out, peel off the paper and cool on a wire rack.
5. Mix together the icing ingredients in a small bowl you don’t want to beat them two hard, layer the sandwich pieces together and ice the top.
6. Final sprinke with poppy seeds

Beetroot and Ginger Cake

As above but replace the carrot with grated beetroot and add 2 tsp of ground ginger . Leave out the poppy seeds. You can also mix a little ground ginger into the icing mix approx half a teaspoon.