Recipe

Serves:  6 people | Prep time:  40 minutes | Cooking time:  30 minutes

British | Vegetarian | Dessert

Ingredients

• 60g Caster sugar
• 80g Dark brown soft sugar
• 2 Medium eggs
• 150ml Sunflower oil
• 170g Plain flour
• 1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• 1/2 tsp Ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp Salt
• 90g Carrot - grated
• 90g Pineapple
• 30g Dried mango - chopped into little pieces
• 100g Walnuts - chopped
• 30g Mixed dried fruit

Frosting

• 200g Butter - room temperature
• 500g Icing sugar
• 500g Mascarpone
• 1tbsp Milk

Icing to decorate

• 110g Ready to roll icing
• Green food colouring
• Orange food colouring
• 200g hazelnuts (chopped and lightly toasted)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C/ 150°F/ Gas Mark 3.
2. Line 2 x 8 inch sandwich tins with baking paper.
3. First make the mini carrot toppers to decorate. Take 80g of the icing and mix well with orange colouring.
4. Take 20g of icing and mix with the green colouring.
5. Roll the orange icing into 8 carrot shapes and score the edges with a knife to add the carrot texture.
6. Roll the green icing into 8 balls, pinch the end of each in you thumb and fingers, flatten the rounded top bits slightly and cut each into four spiked carrot leaves using a sharp knife.
7. Set aside.
8. Put the oil eggs and sugar in a bowl beat with a wooden spoon until well mixed, sieve in the flour & other dry ingredients.
9. Stir in the grated carrot, mango, pineapple, sultanas & walnut pieces into a lined 8 inch baking tin and smooth over with a palette knife.
10. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown, allow the cakes to cool on a wire rack for at least an hour.
11. Now make the cream cheese icing. Take a bowl and add soften the butter using a hand mixer or wooden spoon, add the icing sugar bit by bit once it begins to stiffen and becomes hard to mix add the mascarpone beat on a low speed or by hand until it is a smooth texture, it if feels too stiff to spread you can add a little milk.
12. Using a palette or butter knife spread one of the cakes with a little of the icing and place the other cake on top.
13. Now using a piping bag pipe without a nozzle fill the bag with 2/3 of the icing and snip the end about 1 cm from the tip.
14. Pipe round the sides of the cake covering it completely and pipe on the top in a swirl until it’s covered completely.
15. Smooth this with a palette knife until you have a crisp finish.
16. Take a clean palette/butter knife covering the end of your knife with chopped nuts coat the bottom half of the cake gently pressing against the cake so they stick (this doesn’t have to be too even).
17. Now take a clean piping bag with a star nozzle and the remaining icing pipe 8 swirls around the top of the cake.
18. Decorate each of the 8 swirls with a carrot topper.