Carrot Cake Fondant Fancies

 

This bake is the patisserie showstopper I was set for my bake off challenge. Instead of the classic flavours of a fondant fancy, I decided to change it up by instead making my favourite cake, a carrot cake. For the benefit of this, I omitted the raisins and pecans as I feared they would make it hard to slice neatly. I think this worked out well. However, what I did learnt in the process of this bake is that it's best not to be too stingy with making icing as I ended up making it too thin due to fear of it not being enough which resulted in too much of it running off the sides and it not having the thick fondant coating required. Lessons learnt for next time. Regardless, they taste delicious and I would definitely recommend giving them a go if you fancy a challenge. 

Recipe - Makes 8

For the cake:

• 50g butter  
• 70g light brown sugar  
• 75g carrot, grated 
• 1 egg
• 70g self-raising flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/3 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/6 tsp ground nutmeg 
• Pinch salt  

For the buttercream: 

• 120g margarine, softened 
• 120g icing sugar 
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract

 For the icing:

• 300g fondant icing sugar 
• 2 tbsp boiling water 
• Orange food colouring 

First, make the cake by putting the butter in a pan and melt gently over a medium heat. Remove from the heat, add the sugar and mix well. Beat in the eggs and carrot, then fold in the flour,salt and spices. Pour into a lined 6 inch square tin and bake at 170C for 20-25 minutes until risen and the sponge springs back when pressed lightly. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. 

Meanwhile, make the buttercream by creaming the butter and icing sugar in a bowl to light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract. Trim the edges and top of the cake to neaten and ensure the sponge is flat. Cut into 16 equal squares and spread a small amount of buttercream on top of half of the cake squares and sandwich one of the non-buttercreamed cake squares on top. Spread a layer of buttercream around the edges and top of the cakes. Transfee the remaining buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm piping nozzle and pipe a small blob on the top of each of the cakes. Put in the freezer for 20 minutes to chill and harden. 

Make the fondant icing by adding enough boiling water into the icing sugar until it forms an icing that is thick enough to coat the cakes without running off too much. Remove about 1/5 of the icing and put to one side, then add orange food colouring to the rest. Remove the cakes from the freezer and drizzle then icing over the top. Leave for 15 minutes to set. Transfer the set aside white icing into a piping bag fitted with a piping nozzle and drizzle over the iced cakes. Leave again for a further 15 minutes to set.