Brasilian Carrot Cake

Today I will share a Brasilian carrot cake recipe with you. Brasilians love cakes. I am not talking cupcakes as the ones I am particularly in love with. They love big cakes, as big as their personalities. Cakes that are big enough to feed a troop. What is special about our carrot cake? It is simply carroty. Contrary to the carrot recipes that we find so often in cookery books in the UK where I live, in Brasil people do not have the habit of adding dried fruits to their carrot cake. It is quite often carrots, vegetable oil, eggs, flour, baking powder and sugar. The carrot takes center stage. The touch is the chocolate topping. Yes, you read it right, C H O C O L A T E. No, it isn’t odd. It works pretty well. Perhaps it wouldn’t go well with the typical carrot cake of this neck of the woods where I now live.

 

To celebrate this Brasilian institution, the carrot cake the Brasilian way, I chose a recipe that was passed on by Ana’s grandmother. Not passed on directly to me by the grandma since we never met, but by Ana who is another fellow Brasilian. It is Grandmother Anna’s Carrot Cake. – I believe that her grandmother’s name was also Anna. The recipe even asks for blender. Blenders are very important household objects in Brasil and more than food processors they are very much used in every day recipes.

 

Main Ingredients:

4 medium carrots, peeled and grated

3 medium eggs

2 cups of sugar

½ cup vegetable oil

2 cups plain flour
1 tablespoon baking powder

 

Chocolate Icing

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 tablespoons butter

5 tablespoons milk

8 tablespoons sugar

 

Grease a bundt pan and reserve. Pre-heat the oven to 180oC.

Take the grated carrot, the eggs, the vegetable oil and sugar and put it all in the blender. Whiz it long enough to blend it all together but being careful not to over do it otherwise it might alter the consistency or even the colour of the cake. Pour the mixture in a mixing bow and add the dry ingredients, stirring well. Transfer the mixture to the prepared bundt pan and bake for approximately 40 min. Leave it to cool on a rack

Meanwhile put all the icing ingredients in a saucepan and stir it until the butter has melted and the mixture has thickened. Pour it over the cake whilst still hot.

** Please note that the cup measurement used is 250ml.