Weekend Away, Herman, Adam Marsh and James Martin's Carrot Cake

lovely sis B

Don't you find  that the less time you have, the more you get done?


..After I finished work on Saturday  we drove down to Sussex to catch up with sis B and family, and wish nephew D and friend "bon voyage" before they flew off to a snowboarding adventure...Oh and remind them to keep an eye out for stray trees......It was a lovely warm weekend both weather and hospitality-wise...


The main purpose of  the visit was to go to Unravel...lots to show you tomorrow about that...then catch a quick exhibition here,  where I fell in love with Adam Marsh vessels (top image) tiny little ceramic pots...aren't they just gorgeous?  Then back to Sussex for coffee and B's homemade James Martin carrot cake, checking out her sourdough friendship cake Herman. Unfortunately it wasn't ready to pass  any on to me yet... Followed by a lovely long afternoon walk in the woods. Returned for supper and tons of chatting and laughter then drove back home Sunday night with  with lots of nice new memories...


...and a strong desire for more carrot cake...

I had to make one...I knew that James Martin had two recipes, one passed down by his great grandmother. Unusual because he doesn't grate the carrot raw in this one but peels and slices it and then cooks it in orange juice, before adding it to a batter with egg yolks. He then folds in the flour and  whisked egg whites...


...I suspect that this isn't the delicious version B makes...(I'm sure she mentioned grating and desiccated coconut) but I just had to try it...mostly because I love the idea of  heirloom recipes...


As usual I made a couple of tweaks...I used olive oil because I didn't have any corn oil and two tangerines instead of an orange and SR flour instead of plain plus baking powder. I also thought that the recipe had a lot of sugar in it 375g to 350g of flour so I reduced this to 200g plus a squeeze of Agave syrup.  


Both are lovely recipes the one with coconut and grated carrot has more texture the other is much smoother but both are delicious and really moist, oh and sweet enough even though I reduced the amount of sugar by 175g...mmm lovely...