Gulrótarkaka

Carrot cake

Carrot cake is my daughters favorite Icelandic cake. And she’s right: It is really delicious. I feel like I bake it at least once a month for the family - and not only upon request of my daughter. 


Ingredients

250 g soft butter

250 g brown sugar

5 eggs

peel and juice of 1 orange

170 g flour

1 tsp baking powder

100 g chopped almonds

100 g chopped walnuts

250 g carrots

sea salt

For the coating

150 g mascarpone

200 g cream cheese

100 g icing sugar, sieved

peel and juice of 1 lime

For the decoration

6 walnuts (in halves)

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 350 °F (180 °C).

Peel and grate the carrots.

Beat the butter and brown sugar until frothy. 

Separate the eggs and add the egg yolks one by one. 

Then add the orange peel and orange juice, the flour and baking powder, the chopped almonds and walnuts and the grated carrots and stir everything.

In a separate bowl, beat the 5 egg whites with a pinch of sea salt until stiff. Carefully fold it into the dough.

Then place the dough in a springform pan buttered or lined with baking paper. Bake in the oven for at least 45 minutes until golden brown. Be careful – the cake tends to be unbaked at the bottom middle, so bake a little longer and test with wooden sticks whether everything is really baked ("toothpick test").

Let the cake cool for at least one hour.

For the coating, stir all ingredients together. Then spread the mixture on the top and the sides of the cake. Decorate with walnut halves.

If possible, prepare the carrot cake the day before and let it rest over night.

Note: 

If time is pressing, you can simply cover the cake with a normal icing sugar or lemon glaze instead of the cream cheese coating.