Festive White Chocolate Carrot Cake
1 hour 
12 
This festive White Chocolate Carrot Cake is light enough to enjoy after a heavy Christmas dinner, yet indulging and full of festive flavours to celebrate the greatest Christian holiday of the year.
It’s lighter than your usual Christmas cake, yet the carrots and the surprising addition of spiced parsnips make it rich and moist. A real hit! We’ve used natural sweeteners and gluten free and almond flours to make a really light sponge, so this is a perfect festive cake for someone who is gluten intolerant coming to your party and want to put together a treat that everyone else will also enjoy. This White Chocolate Carrot Cake has a light layer of mascarpone cheese mixed with Food Thoughts White Chocolate Chips , which are made just lightly sweetened as they contain 35% cacao solids (so more chocolatey than the average white chocolate chips one finds in the stores. Ugne has added to the frosting a hint of maple syrup so that it hits just the right sweetness, with a slight scent of orange zest to give it that festive edge.
You will need
- 150g carrots, peeled and finely grated
- 350g parsnips, peeled and finely grated
- 120g Food Thoughts White Chocolate Chips, melted and cooled
- 130g maple syrup
- 100g coconut sugar
- 150g sticky dates
- Juice of an orange
- 70g coconut oil
- 100g extra virgin golden rape seed oil
- 3 medium eggs
- 130g raisins
- 100g walnuts, chopped
- 220g self raising flour
- 100g ground almonds
- 80g tapioca flour
- 2tsp baking powder
- 1tsp baking soda
- Pinch of salt
- 2tsp cinnamon
- 1tsp mixed spice
- FOR THE FROSTING:
- 100g vegetable shortening, soft room temperature
- 70g maple syrup
- 200g Food Thoughts White Chocolate Chips, melted and cooled
- 300g mascarpone cheese, room temperature
- 150ml double cream room temperature
Method
First, preheat the oven to 180’C and line and grease two x 23cm
9in cake tins. Set aside.
I used large food processor for the first stage, but you can make it in a stand mixer or using hand held mixer.
Place all the first ingredients in the list up to, and including, the eggs in a food processor bowl or mixer bowl and give it a good whizz until all blended. Then mix in the raisins and walnuts.
In the large bowl mix together all dry ingredients (tapioca flour onwards in the above list). Start your mixer on low speed and slowly add dry ingredients until combined.
Divide the batter between two prepared tins and put in the oven to bake for 30-35min, or until skewer comes out clean.
When done, remove from oven, let them cool in the tins for 10 min, then remove on to wire rack and make sure to peel off the parchment paper. Leave until completely cool before assembling.
Now prepare your FROSTING: Place all ingredients, apart from melted chocolate in to the bowl, and using whisk attachment whisk until nice and fluffy. Now reduce the speed and start slowly pouring the chocolate. Give the final whisk and using spatula mix all scraping the sides of the bowl.
When sponges are ready, cut each in half horizontally and layer with little bit of icing. Coat the top of the cake only lightly to create naked cake look.
Decorate with ginger cookie crumbs, crushed pistachio nuts and grated white cacao melts. For an extra special Christmas look I added few frosted rosemary springs and pomegranate seeds You can use any decorations you prefer, depending on the occasion you are celebrating.
This cake tastes best next day, when all the flavours and spices develops.
