Carrot Almond Cake

Moist carrot almond cake with a fruity and delicious orange juice and whipped cream filling, the perfect Easter cake.

Carrot cake with almonds and an amazing filling, you will love every morsel of this cake.

A moist base with ground almonds filled with a wonderfully aromatic orange filling made with freshly squeezed orange juice, orange zest and whipped heavy cream. A typical German cake I would say, a cake that nobody could say no to. Only writing about it make me crave it again.

The weather is not exactly perfect for spring, still the thought of the approaching Easter is there and I have been thinking for a while now about what I should cook or bake for Easter this spring.

There will definitely be some lamb, something like this Roast Leg of Lamb with White Wine, this Romanian Lamb Stew – Tocanita de miel and then the Romanian Sweet Bread with Walnuts – Cozonac Recipe would be the obvious choice.

What do you need?

Ground almonds:

• Ground with their skin still on.
• The almonds need to be slightly roasted before being added to the batter.
• Do that in a dry pan, stirring almost continuously. Stand by the stove and stir often, if you don't watch out the almonds can go from toasted to burned in a matter of seconds.
• Remove them from the pan the second they are done, if you leave them in the hot pan they will continue cooking and some of them will get black. Been there, done that, not nice, you have to start all over again and almonds or nuts are not quite cheap.

Cornstarch:

• Needed to make the pudding.
• If you live in Germany/Europe you can replace that and the vanilla extract with one packet vanilla pudding powder.

Oranges:

• 5-6 large oranges, depending on their size, enough to get 375 ml/ 12.7 fl.oz/ 1 ⅔ cups + 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice and to have one orange left for filleting. I got that amount of juice out of 4 very large oranges.
• Buy 1 or 2 more to make sure you have enough + 1 extra orange for filleting.
• The oranges should be organic and unwaxed as you will need their zest as well.
• If you cannot get any, wash the oranges thoroughly with dish soap and rub them dry with a kitchen cloth.
• You will need the zest of 2 ½ oranges, from one for the cake base, from one for decorating the cake, and from ½ orange for the filling.

Other ingredients for the cake base: carrots, eggs, zest of 1 orange, sugar, vanilla extract, flour, and baking powder.

Other ingredients for the filling: gelatin, sugar, vanilla extract, heavy/double cream. And pistachios for decorating the cake (optional).

Tips for making the cake

• You should start making the filling for the carrot almond cake even before baking the base of the cake. You will have to cook a pudding first, which needs time to cool down completely. That's why the pudding should be made several hours before you want to fill the cake. Generally, when making such pudding fillings for cakes, I prefer to make the pudding the evening before filling the cake.
• Place a piece of cling film directly over the surface of the hot pudding. That will prevent it from forming a skin. Don't worry about the cling film melting or something like that, it will not happen.
• The filling needs to be stabilized with 4 leaves of bloomed gelatin. I wrote detailed instructions about working with gelatin in this post for No Bake Ricotta Sour Cream Cheesecake. Make sure to read it, if you haven't worked with gelatin before. And don't stress about it, it is really easy!
• The cake needs to stay cool and stabilize for about 3-4 hours in the fridge. You can also make the cake one day in advance and let it in the fridge overnight.
• If you wish you can decorate the cake with dried orange zest. For this purpose zest one organic orange a few hours before decorating, spread the zest on a piece of kitchen paper, and let dry. You could also decorate the cake with small marzipan carrots.

More carrot cakes:

Carrot Muffins with Blueberry Frosting

The Best Carrot Coconut Cake

Nigella's Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Eggless Carrot Cake

Spicy Carrot Cookies

Carrot Almond Cake

Moist carrot almond cake with a fruity and delicious orange juice and whipped cream filling, the perfect Easter cake.

5 from 3 votes

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Course: Cakes

Cuisine: German

Prep Time: 1 hour hour

Cook Time: 45 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 45 minutes minutes

Servings: 14 -16

Calories: 286kcal

Author: Adina

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Ingredients 

• ▢ Base:
• ▢ 250 g/ 8.8 oz carrots weighed after peeling
• ▢ 150 g/ 5.3 oz/ 1 ¼ cups ground almonds
• ▢ 4 eggs
• ▢ zest of 1 organic orange
• ▢ 150 g/ 5.3 oz/ ¾ cup sugar
• ▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ▢ 100 g/ 3.5 oz/ ¾ cup + 1 tablespoon flour
• ▢ 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ▢ Filling:
• ▢ 4 leaves gelatin
• ▢ 40 g/ 1.4 oz/ ⅓ cup cornstarch Note1
• ▢ 40 g/ 1.4 oz/ scant ¼ cup sugar
• ▢ 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• ▢ 5-6 organic oranges Note 2
• ▢ 400 ml/ 12.5 fl.oz/ 1 ½ cups heavy/double cream
• ▢ zest of ½ organic orange
• ▢ To decorate:
• ▢ zest of 1 organic orange
• ▢ chopped pistachios

Instructions

Cake:

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius/ 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a springform of about 26 cm/ 10.2 inches diameter thoroughly and coat it with flour. Shake well over the sink to remove the excess flour.
• Peel the carrots. Weigh the required quantity. Finely grate the carrots.
• Roast the almonds in a dry pan. Stand by the stove and stir frequently. Immediately remove the roasted almonds from the pan and let cool while you prepare the rest.
• Separate the eggs. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Set aside.
• Zest the oranges. You will need the zest of 2 ½ oranges, from one for the cake base, from one for decorating the cake, and from ½ orange for the filling.
• Beat together the egg yolks, sugar, vanilla extract, and the zest of 1 orange until light in color and creamy, at least 2 minutes at high speed.
• Fold in the grated carrots and the roasted almonds.
• In another bowl mix together the flour and the baking powder. Sieve the mixture over the egg yolk mixture and fold in. Carefully fold in the egg whites as well.
• Pour the mixture into the prepared springform and bake for 40-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for about 15 minutes, then remove it and let it cool completely on a wire rack.

Filling:

• Start with making the pudding as it will need several hours to reach room temperature.
• Place the gelatin leaves into a deep plate and cover them with cold water. Leave to bloom as instructed on the packet's instructions, about 10 minutes.
• Juice some of the oranges and measure 375 ml/ 12.7 fl.oz/ 1 ⅔ cups orange juice. If only a small quantity of liquid is missing you can top that with water. Keep one extra orange whole, as you will need that for the filling.
• Stir the cornstarch and the sugar with a little of the juice, enough to be able to form a pourable paste. Pour the rest of the juice into a saucepan and bring to a boil. When it boils whisk in the cornstarch paste. Let bubble a couple of times while whisking continuously.
• Remove from the heat and stir in the bloomed and lightly squeezed gelatin. Add the vanilla extract as well. Place a piece of cling film directly over the surface of the pudding to prevent it from forming a skin. Leave to cool completely.

Assemble and decorate:

• Spread the zest of 1 orange on a piece of kitchen paper. Leave to dry for a while. You will need that for decorating the cake and it works better if the zest is dry. Of course, this step is optional, you can decorate the cake any other way you like.
• Beat the heavy cream until stiff. Fold in the zest of another ½ orange.
• Stir the pudding shortly to make it smoother. Fold the whipped heavy cream into the orange pudding.
• Slice the cake one time horizontally. Place the lower slice on a serving platter.
• Peel the extra orange and fillet the orange slices, so that all the white skin and membranes are removed. Cut the orange fillets into smaller pieces.
• Arrange them all over the lower cake slice. Top with ½ of the orange cream filling. Place the second cake slice on top and top with the remaining orange cream filling.
• Decorate with chopped pistachios and dried orange zest.
  

Notes

Use a digital kitchen scale for best results, especially when baking a more complicated cake like this one. (Amazon affiliate link)

1. Instead of cornstarch and vanilla extract, you can use 1 packet vanilla pudding powder, the type that needs cooking (for instance, from Dr. Oetker or similar).
2. Or enough to get 375 ml/ 12.7 fl.oz/ 1 ⅔ cups + 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice and to have one orange left for filleting. I got that amount of juice out of 4 very large oranges. Buy 1 or 2 more to make sure you have enough + 1 extra orange for filleting. The oranges should be organic and unwaxed as you will need their zest as well.

Nutrition

Serving: 1slice out of 16 | Calories: 286kcal | Carbohydrates: 31g | Protein: 7g | Fat: 16g | Saturated Fat: 7g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 8g | Cholesterol: 75mg | Sodium: 118mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 19g

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