Karen's yummy cake

 At our last quilting weekend Karen brought a lovely cake for our afternoon tea.

Here is the recipe as promised...

Carrot Cake (GF and other adaptations by Karen)

 

2 cups plain flour (if using gluten-free, add ½ tsp xanthan or guar gum, or 1 tbsp golden syrup)

2 tsp baking powder

1 ½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon (plus ½  tsp each of ground ginger, five-spice powder, cardamom, or to taste)

1 tsp salt

4 eggs

2 cups brown sugar

1 ¼ cups vegetable oil

2 cups grated carrot

1 cup chopped walnuts

250 gm tin pineapple (crushed or chopped; drained)

 

Frosting

250 gm butter, softened

250 gm cream cheese

c. 250 gm icing sugar, sifted (add more to make stiffer, sweeter frosting)

1 tsp vanilla essence

 

Sift flour, baking powder and soda, spices and salt.

 

Beat eggs well in a separate large bowl. Add sugar and oil gradually, continuing to beat.

Fold in carrots, nuts and pineapple gradually, mixing well after each addition.

Fold in flour mixture gradually. (If using g/f flour, add a little liquid, e.g. from the pineapple tin, if the mix is too stiff.)

 

Divide mixture between two rectangular slice tins, lined with baking paper.

 

Bake at 180ºC for  15-30 minutes depending on your oven. They are cooked when a skewer in the middle comes out clean.

Allow to sit in the pans for 15 minutes, then put on wire racks to cool, covered with a tea towel.

 

Frosting: Beat butter and cream cheese together, adding icing sugar gradually and vanilla. 

Use the frosting either on top of the cakes or as a middle layer between the two.

 

Tip: Unless there will be a lot of hungry mouths, only ice one of the cakes (or cut it in half and sandwich the halves with the frosting) and freeze the other cake (without any frosting) for later use.

After freezing, defrost then heat in a microwave oven for about 1 minute before adding frosting.

 

Karen Wilson

September 2025

 

Based on a recipe from Priscilla Roth in The Independent newspaper, London,  c. 1988

September is flying past

 Sorry that this has taken so long to come but sheds have taken precedence.

Elaine and Karen came for our scheduled day together a few weeks ago, Liz was on Zoom. I received a few shadow blocks after our day so we will need to work out where they will go.

Progress so far includes...

Carol's Orange now has its borders added and binding cut but it needs a polar fleece backing. I don't have any to hand so we'll need to buy that in a dark blue or teal I think.

Lots of shadow blocks have come in and our thinking is to make a more adult quilt with the 'favourites in blue/green' combined with some of the brown. The 3.5" blocks at the RH side are random thoughts about using up some squares as a border. The 3 blocks on the left are the extras that we will need to add to either this or the child's quilt.

This is what we have so far for the child's quilt but one or two of them are quite suitable for the more adult one. 

I had so many offcuts of polar fleece that Stephanie and I are in the process of making some 'franken' polar fleece backs for these quilts.

We chose another fabric for our next quilt and I have cut pieces but not sent them out yet. I have not made the trial block to show you either so you will need to be patient.

We thought that the fabric lends itself to a block like the one Jeanette showed us with the pale part of her borders in the pale blue we found in our stash. I'll send this out with the focus fabric. Your job will be to find one of the other darker colours in the fabric (not white or any of the greens and not the yellow either. Good luck.