Orange Upside Down Carrot Cake - Gluten Free/Lactose Free
Cakes, Bakes & Bread
Feeds 8-10
Cook Time: 2 Hours plus cooling
Difficulty: Medium
This was a cake born out of necessity. A necessity to use up a tonne of carrots and oranges in our fridge.
I didn’t have a recipe in particular and sort of made it up as I went along! I always put baking off as I feel it a little restrictive when it comes to strictly following a recipe so I am trying to free my self up a little and try some freewheeling in the pastry section (our kitchen doesn’t have a pastry section by the way. Its so small it barely has a chopping board!)
The thought process behind this cake followed a logic that orange and cake is lovely, carrot and orange is lovely, carrot and cake is lovely so surely orange, carrot and cake together will be out of this world! I was delighted to find that I was right! It is properly delicious!
The base cake recipe in this is actually a super versatile one. You can use it for all sorts of types of cakes and makes for a really great standard go-to cake recipe. Just take the carrots out and you’ve got a lovely universal cake recipe - from cupcakes to just about any other type of cake!
I used Bennett & Dunn Rapeseed Oil, a local to Shropshire, freshly cold pressed rapeseed oil. They are a Slow Food business member so follow all the right paths when making their oil. It is the most beautifully glowing colour and adds a lovely tone to the cake mix as well as a gorgeous flavour. This can be subbed out for any sort of oil. Olive oil would work well. I don’t want to suggest highly processed veg, sunflower or rapeseed oil but if that is all you’ve got - it will work fine!
Our house is largely gluten and lactose free but the cake recipe here can easily have butter swapped out for oil and usual self raising flour in exchange for the gluten free flour.
I used caster sugar as this is what I had to hand but part of me feels like a light soft brown sugar would really add some nice caramel-y depth to the cake.
This cake was made in a round cake tin but nothings to say you couldn't make it square or oblong - use the cake tins you have around you. I am fairly sure this fitted an 8 inch cake tin but I don’t have a measuring tape so it’s hard to say for sure. Its about this big (I’m holding my fingers out at what seems to be around 8 inches apart).
I failed to check my cupboards before starting to bake this. Big mistake! I found at the crucial time that I didn’t have enough gluten free self raising flour. I ended up subbing in some buckwheat and cornflour to make up the weight. It gave the cake a little extra nutty almost wholemeal-y flavour which was delightful and got my brain ticking about upping the buckwheat to maybe even a 50:50 mix with self raising flour. I haven’t had a chance to explore this but if any of you guys do, please let me know.
The cake stayed moist for 5 days and only on day 6 did the edges start to succumb to its long life. Its such a winner of a recipe that you’ll do well to make it last that long!
I served a big old wedge of it with a splodge of creme fraiche (making it not lactose free, soz!) but my wife suggested a sweetened cream cheese icing would have been perfect. That thought is hard to argue with and something that I am definitely going to explore next time I have a surplus of carrots and oranges.
As a self proclaimed non-baker, I was extremely pleased with how simple and totally delicious this recipe is and I hope you enjoy it!
INGREDIENTS:
For The Orange Base/Top/Upside Down Bit:
2 Oranges, 2-3mm slices
160-180g Sugar
120-140g Water
For The Cake:
200g Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil
300g Carrots
3 Large Eggs
200g Sugar
200g Gluten Free Self Raising Flour (or as I did, 160g GF SRF, 20g Cornflour & 20g Buckwheat Flour)
1 Tsp Baking Powder
1 Tsp Mixed Spice
1/2 Tsp Cinnamon
Pinch of Salt
To Serve:
1 Dip Creme Fraiche per slice
METHOD:
For the orange topping/base put the sugar and water in a saucepan and place on a medium heat to melt the sugar and form syrup.
When the sugar has fully dissolved add the slices of orange to the pan. Bring to a simmer and cook the orange slices for around 10-15 minutes until the peel and pith has softened. Once soft, turn the heat off and leave the oranges in the syrup to cool.
Pre-heat the oven to 160C Fan.
I don’t usually grate my carrots out of a mixture of laziness and a hunt for more fibre but this is totally up you! Peel or not, you will have to grate them!
To make the cake batter, add the rapeseed oil, grated carrot, sugar and eggs to a blender or food processor and blend until as smooth as it will go (this will depend a little on the power of your blender and the grated carrot! Mine isn’t great so I still had some bits of grated carrot floating around - its not biggy!).
In a mixing bowl, add the flour, baking powder, mixed spice, cinnamon and salt and mix well with a whisk to break up the lumps (I hate sieving things - too messy!).
Gently fold in the wet mix from the blender into the flour until completely combined and you’re left with a smooth (apart from any grated carrot lumps) cake mix.
Line the base of an 8 inch cake tin (I think it was 8 inches, it may have been 9 or 10 - these are the details I struggle with when it comes to baking!) with greaseproof paper and grease the sides liberally with oil, margarine or butter (or more greaseproof paper!!!).
Arrange the orange slices in the bottom of the cake tin remembering that this will be the top so consider your desired pattern before you start!
Pour over the cake mix and gently smooth over with a palette knife.
Bake in the pre-heated oven for around 45-50 minutes until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and leave to sit for 5-10 minutes before carefully turning out onto a wire rack and leaving to completely cool.
Serve with a splodge of creme fraiche, cream or my wife’s suggestion, some sweetened cream cheese icing/frosting.
