Mark's Easter Carrot & Cinnamon Cake with Lots of Frosting!!

I decided to make my husband a cake for Easter instead of getting him an Easter egg, as he kept telling me he didn't want an egg.

I know he loves carrot cake so i decided to make one with extra frosting!!!

He loves mini eggs so to make it more festive i decorated the cake with them.

So he did get an egg after all.......

Pre heat oven 180c, 375f gas mark 5

Cake

½ pint sunflower oil
8oz soft light brown sugar
4 medium eggs beaten
6oz golden syrup
12oz self raising flour
2 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
9 ½oz grated carrot

Frosting recipe follows next picture.

Grease and line 2 x 20cm round tin.

Put the oil, sugar, golden syrup and eggs in a mixer and blend together, add the flour, cinnamon, bicabonate of soda and grated carrot to the mixer and mix till just blended.

Pur the mixtures equally into the tins.

Bake in the oven for 30/35 minutes, or till a skewer or cocktail stick comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tins for 10 minutes, then take them out of the tins and let cool completely before you frost them.

Frosting

8oz full fat cream cheese

4 ½oz unsalted butter room temperture

1lb icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 bag of Cadbury mini eggs

In a mixer cream the butter till it's soft and pale, add the cream cheese and stir together, add the vanilla extract and stir it in, then stir in the icing sugar, till it's smooth.

Turn both cakes over so you have flat surfaces to frost.

Put a layer of frosting on the top of the first cake, then sandwich the second cake on top.

Spread the rest of the frosting all over the cakes, and decorate with mini eggs. 

Banana, Cinnamon & Chocolate Muffins....

I was making a batch of Banana, Cinnamon and Chocolate Muffins. I had made some snazzy cases from parchment paper and spooned the mixture in them all, that was time consuming.
I'd put them in the oven, then noticed the bowl of mashed banana still sat on the side!!!
I did wonder why the mixture was too stiff, luckily they had only been in oven for 10 seconds so I managed to save them.

Needless to say I'd had enough of making the cases, so reverted back to the normal shop bought ones.

They may not have looked so pretty, but they still tasted GREAT!!!

They were moist and light and fluffy too....

Pre heat oven 180c, 360f, gas mark 5

Makes about 12 muffins

2 large eggs beaten
125ml vegetable oil
200g light brown soft sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 ripe bananas mashed
250g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
50g walnuts toasted and roughly chopped
50g dark chocolate roughly chopped ( i use lindt 70% chocolate)


In a bowl mix the eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla extract, then stir in the bananas.

In another bowl sieve the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt and cinnamon.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir in till just mixed, don't over mix or your muffins will be heavy and tough.

Gently stir in the  nuts and chocolate.

Spoon mixture into paper cases in a muffin tin, about ¾ of the way up.

Bake for 20/25 minutes, till a cocktail stick or skewer comes out clean.

Best served warm.

They freeze well, just revive them in the oven for about 4 minutes.

You can use other nuts like pecans or hazelnuts, and add raisins if you like.