It was my mum’s birthday the other week and as usual I made her a carrot cake to celebrate the occasion.
She loves her carrot cake and over the past few years, I have tried putting different spins on the classic cake we all know and love. For example I’ve made a carrot cake swiss roll and a carrot cake meringue pie over the past couple of years.
This year I took some inspiration from a bake I hade made a couple of months back, my banana bread fondant fancies. These were little squares of banana bread, topped with a sheet of fondant and iced with chocolate. They went down a storm.
So I whipped up a carrot sheet cake, inspired by a recipe from ‘Taste of Home’ and let it sit out for a day to get firm. It’s better to let the cake get firmer before icing as it doesn’t fall apart the same.
I topped the sheet cake with some ready rolled fondant and then cut it into squares. With some leftover fondant I rolled into small balls and stuck to the top of each square.
From the name of the bake, you can probably guess that things didn’t quite go to plan. I thought I had nothing better to do than make the same chocolate frosting I had for the banana bread fancies, but use white chocolate instead of plain. Big mistake!
The cocoa solids in plain and white chocolate vary wildly meaning my batch of icing was way too runny. I added more icing sugar and had to refrigerate it until it was a better consistency.
It is a painstaking process covering each square in icing, and I genuinely ran out of time to cover each one, so I settled for icing the tops, which ran down the sides of some of them. I also added a squiggle of orange icing for a bit of decoration. Semi-decorated…
These need to set overnight, so do make them well in advance if trying this out.
Carrot Cake Fondant Fancies
fondant and dipped in a white choc icing
Cuisine: Dessert Category: Petit Four Yields: 28 fancies
Prep Time: 1 Hr Cook Time: 35 Mins Total Time: 1 Hr 35 Mins
Ingredients
- 4 large eggs
- 250 ml vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 450 grams granulated sugar
- 200 grams plain flour
- 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 150 grams grated carrot
- 85 grams chopped walnuts
- 1 pack of ready rolled fondant icing
- Apricot jam/Syrup/Agave Nectar or similar
- 150 grams white chocolate, chopped
- 37 grams unsalted butter
- 6 tablespoons water
- 240 grams icing sugar
- More icing sugar and orange food colouring for decoration.
- Preheat the oven to 180C and line a 9”x13” baking pan with greaseproof paper.
- In a bowl sieve together the flour, bicarb, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.
- In a larger bowl whisk together the eggs, vegetable oil, vanilla and granulated sugar until smooth.
- Add the flour mix and mix until the ingredients are incorporated.
- Add the carrots and walnuts and stir through.
- Pour into the prepared baking pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center.
- Allow to cool fully.
- When cooled, brush the top with warmed jam or syrup then place the rolled fondant on top.
- Press the fondant down and cut excess from the edges. Keep the excess fondant.
- Carefully cut into 28 squares with a long sharp knife.
- Divide the leftover fondant into 28 small balls and adhere to the top of each square using water.
- Make the icing by melting the chocolate with the butter and water, in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.
- Stir in the icing sugar until smooth. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours to let the icing get to a dippable consistency.
- Dip the top of each fancy into the icing and carefully coat the edges too (unlike I did). Place on a wire rack for excess to drip off.
- Mix some icing sugar, water and orange food colouring to a drizzling consistency and drizzle over the fancies.
- Allow to dry out overnight.