Yields 6 cakes
150 g finely grated peeled carrots
90 ml vegetable oil
150 g dark brown sugar
30 g honey
6 g finely grated fresh ginger
1 large egg
125 g all-purpose flour
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
½ tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp fine salt
½ cup raisins or crushed pineapple (well drained)

Recipe Courtesy of
Anna Olson

Episode 7: Steamed Carrot Cake

My inspiration for this dessert isn’t actually a dessert at all, but a name. When visiting the hawker centres in Singapore, I would enjoy eating “carrot cake” which in fact a steamed daikon radish side dish and about as far from a dessert that you can get. I love the idea that what I know of as carrot cake is completely different from the hawker version, so I’ve created a dessert where the carrot cake is closer in taste to the dessert I’ve grown up with, but with inspiration taken from the steaming technique, and a little savoury spice addition.

Difficulty: Easy

Preparation: 15 min
Cook: 45 min
Clean up: 15 min

Steps: 3 steps
14 Ingredients

Difficulty: Easy
Steps: 3 steps
14 Ingredients

Preparation: 15 min
Cook: 45 min
Clean up: 15 min

Instructions

Preheat oven and grease ramekins
- Grease six 150 mL (5-fl.oz) ramekins and place them in a pan with sides that are higher than the ramekins. Preheat the oven to 180 °C (350 °F).

Make cake mixture
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk the carrots, oil, brown sugar, honey, ginger, egg and egg yolk by hand until evenly blended.
- In a separate bowl, sift the flour, cinnamon, pepper, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- Add this to the carrot mixture and stir by hand until evenly combined (the batter will be very wet). Stir in the raisins (or pineapple). Divide this between the prepared ramekins.

Bake cake
- Pour boiling hot water around the ramekins so that it comes up halfway and cover the pan with foil or a lid. Bake the carrot cakes for 35-40 minutes, until a tester inserted in the centre of a cake comes out clean. Remove the ramekins immediately onto a cooling rack, and cool the cakes for at least 30 minutes before serving, or they can be served at room temperature. To serve, run a palette knife around the inside edge of each ramekin and turn the cake out onto a plate.