CARROT CAKE REVIEW No 7 ~ The Cakey Vanishes
Overstrand, Norfolk.
A strong aroma of citrus should have been sufficient warning, to indicate that all was not right here. The first mouthful. lost no time at all in confirming there was no trace of carrot flavour left in this travesty of a carrot cake, that had not been soaked, but sozzled, in orange flavouring. Not a nice orange flavouring either, but that peculiarly pungent catering variety the synthetic orange essence, similar to sucking out the liquid centre of a boiled sweet.
A self-declared Gluten Free cake, it bore some of the sadly usual shortcomings of the genus. The cake had so little structure, stability or weight to it, that almost from the moment the cake hit my palate it quickly dissolved into nothing. Leaving a horrible dry after taste lingering like a layer of plaster dust on the tongue. Hubby suggests that they've used a gluten free flour of some kind without really doing enough to provide sufficient substance to keep the whole thing afloat, by increasing say the amount of egg in it, for instance.
The amount of grated carrot in this cakes recipe must have been pretty low, around 150 gms + not enough to impart the requisite carrotyness. Yet any more carrot would have caused this cake to sink like the veritable Mary Rose. There were sultanas in it, and some variety of chopped nuts too small and flavourless to be identifiable. The one spice flavour that was distinctly noticeable was ground clove, I mean ground cloves!.... in a carrot cake!! What were these people thinking of?
Finally, to the topping. Deep sigh, yet another buttercream. Not just any old buttercream, but a sugary greasy buttercream, that Hubby, who knows about such things, thinks may have been rescued after having first split, where all the elements in it have partially separated in the mixing. Oh dear oh dear, this is not going to end in a good score.
CARROT CAKE SCORE ~ 2/8
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A strong aroma of citrus should have been sufficient warning, to indicate that all was not right here. The first mouthful. lost no time at all in confirming there was no trace of carrot flavour left in this travesty of a carrot cake, that had not been soaked, but sozzled, in orange flavouring. Not a nice orange flavouring either, but that peculiarly pungent catering variety the synthetic orange essence, similar to sucking out the liquid centre of a boiled sweet.
A self-declared Gluten Free cake, it bore some of the sadly usual shortcomings of the genus. The cake had so little structure, stability or weight to it, that almost from the moment the cake hit my palate it quickly dissolved into nothing. Leaving a horrible dry after taste lingering like a layer of plaster dust on the tongue. Hubby suggests that they've used a gluten free flour of some kind without really doing enough to provide sufficient substance to keep the whole thing afloat, by increasing say the amount of egg in it, for instance.
The amount of grated carrot in this cakes recipe must have been pretty low, around 150 gms + not enough to impart the requisite carrotyness. Yet any more carrot would have caused this cake to sink like the veritable Mary Rose. There were sultanas in it, and some variety of chopped nuts too small and flavourless to be identifiable. The one spice flavour that was distinctly noticeable was ground clove, I mean ground cloves!.... in a carrot cake!! What were these people thinking of?
Finally, to the topping. Deep sigh, yet another buttercream. Not just any old buttercream, but a sugary greasy buttercream, that Hubby, who knows about such things, thinks may have been rescued after having first split, where all the elements in it have partially separated in the mixing. Oh dear oh dear, this is not going to end in a good score.
CARROT CAKE SCORE ~ 2/8
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