Task 28: Bake a carrot cake

Many of you would not regard this as a challenge at all.  For me, though, the entire kitchen is pretty much outside my comfort zone.  About ten years ago I did buy the ingredients to make a carrot cake, which is Peter’s favourite, but never got around to doing anything with them.  Two friends – Pauline and Libby - rallied round and supplied me with infallible recipes, from Mary Berry and Mongolia respectively.  They were fairly similar but as I was assured that you simply can’t go wrong with Mary Berry, I opted for that. 

Initially it was fairly promising, although the carrot seemed past its best and somewhat outnumbered by the bananas:

It didn’t take too long to prepare the cake mix and although the end result looked a bit overdone, it was just the right side of burnt and the skewer duly came out clean when I plunged it through the middle.  The mascarpone and walnut icing seemed to go relatively smoothly too:

This afternoon we decided to have a slice with a cup of tea and I was quietly confident that all would be well.  The icing had benefited from the cake having spent the night in the fridge and looked firm but not rock-hard.  This cooking malarkey seemed far more straightforward than I’d expected.  On the other hand, when I cut through the cake, the knife did feel as though it was encountering some firm resistance - and not in a good way.

I tried a forkful and it wasn’t pleasant. The texture was stodgy and the taste was a mixture of banana and flour, in a sort of clammy consistency.  You couldn’t taste any carrot at all and even the walnuts seemed to have vanished.  Possibly, though, my judgement was being affected by my dislike of bananas.  Either way, it was time Peter tried it – especially as it had been made specifically with him in mind.  He’s a kind man and has also learnt over the years that brutal honesty doesn’t often go down well.  His verdict?  “Hmm, not great.” 

So even Mary Berry has met her match – and Peter has the rest of the cake to wade through.