Thursday, October 1, 2009

First Birthday Food


My youngest, Bojjandi, turned one yesterday. It was bitter-sweet - on the one hand I was happy I had managed to keep him alive given two siblings under six with a habit of strewing tiny toys around the house and not knowing their own strength. on the other hand, my littlest baby was also getting ready to move into toddler-hood, baby no more. I almost thought it was time for baby # 4 but the prospect of divorce and/ or working until the age of 95 made me decide 3 was enough to be going on with.

For his first birthday party, the food had to be something that he could eat. Moreover, I had had pest control done just two days before and the kitchen was lying strewn all over the dining room, so it had to be an easy menu. Finally I decided simplicity was going to be key and fixed the menu: Idlis with huli and coconut chutney, rice flavoured with vegetables and menthedittu, and carrot cake.

The Carrot Cake was a new one on me but I had been wanting to make one for quite a while, and when I saw the recipe in one of my favourite recipe books, I found it was healthy too - wholewheat flour, carrots, orange juice and vegetable oil. It turned out really well, though it was flatter than I expected, as I had baked it in a wide cake pan. I frosted it simply with cream cheese flavoured with honey and orange juice - something which didn't tax my cake-decorating skills of which, to say they are meagre would be high praise. And proof of the deliciousness of the said cake was Bojji gobbling it up and wailing loudly for seconds :)




Carrot Cake recipe

Ingredients:

2 cups wholemeal self-raising flour, or with 2.5 tsps of baking powder added

3-4 carrots, grated and squeezed dry

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup caster sugar

1 tsp nutmeg powder

1 tsp cinnamon powder

3 eggs

1 cup walnuts, powdered (optional)

Zest of 1 orange and its juice



Beat together the orange zest, OJ, sugar and eggs until light and frothy. Add the vegetable oil, flour and spices and mix well. Add in the carrots and walnuts and mix together. Pour the cake batter into a greased and lined 8" baking pan and bake at 180 degrees for 1 hour - decide n baking time and temperature based on your oven's idiosyncrasies. Mine required baking at 160 for 35 minutes and the crust was close to burnt.



For the frosting, beat together 225 gms cream cheese with 2-3 tbsp honey and 1 tbsp OJ. You can also use this to sandwich the cake together and then top with Royal or Marzipan icing. Decorate as wished...





8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy brrday baby bojji!
kiss his confectionary smeared mouth madame.

Sonia said...

Happy Birthday to your little one!! Carrot cakes are just awesome!

bird's eye view said...

Thanks, Anon.

Sonia - this was my first atempt at a carrot cake and I loved it!

d said...

hey happy birthday to bojjandi and glad to see you back here again.

i have an almost identical carrot cake recipe and it works like a dream. and the best part is that it is so healthy - with the whole wheat flour and oil and carrots even if the kids want to eat it for dinner its like eating chapatis with carrot sabji!!! mine was given to me by a friend who got it from a friend so here's my question which book is this??? i must have it. it can only have other equally fantastic recipes, no?
thanks,
d

bird's eye view said...

Thanks, D. This was in a book simply called cakes and Cake decorating!

d said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
d said...

thank you! will go look for it.

my recipe is identical - except it doesnt have powdered walnuts - but 1 cup of chopped mixed nuts, it has 2 cups of grated carrots (not 3-4), both baking powder and baking soda and none of the spice powders and OJ. and for some strange reason it also has the instruction - keep 2 hours before baking. i have never managed to wait 2 full hours but have never dared keep it for less than an hour either. like i said before it works like a dream.

thanks,
d

Primary Work at Home said...

I also wanted to try carrot cake. Happy bday to your little one.