CARROT CAKE REVIEW No 35 - I Really Want To Be Kind, I Do Honestly!

Sheringham Promenade 

A good coffee on a Sunday morning has a distinct pleasure all its own, particularly when you are down on the front in Sheringham. It was the day after a thirty two degree heat. In the late afternoon we'd had to prematurely curtail a meeting herewith friends because it was just too unbearably hot, and the humidity had resulted in the hatching of whole flight squadrons of swottable flies. Which nonetheless swarmed around my medicinally blood thinned body looking for a convenient point of rest or entry. 

But on this particular Sunday morning we had the benefit of it being both bright with a strong along shore coastal breeze. The cafe is a summer favourite, and hence most favoured for our morning coffee's before I dispatch Hubby to his work. The coffee ,the view, the general ambiance, is great, plus the guy who owns and runs it is gregarious, affable,and an all round friendly cove. I've never been called 'buddy' quite so often before. So I really want to be kind, I do honestly, I like the place and the coffee here. The quality of the cake offering, however, is inconsistent across the range available. Its generally very good to...Mmmm...to what I'd reluctantly say dips below average. I usually have a tea cake, which is a stolid stomach filler, but consistently its a bit light on the sultanas for my preference. Someone in the bakery needs to get in touch with a more free flowing level and abundant spirit of generosity. 

They've taken recently to doing a regular 'try these out' feature cake. I guess to see if they are missing a trick. The Cinnamon Bun, unfortunately was way too heavy on the dough, very very light on the cinnamon/sugar. So today's offering of a Carrot & Pecan Cake, I approached with a degree of, eyebrows in alert, caution. It did look, on even a momentary glance to be suspiciously too light in both colour and texture. It was of course really a neatly portioned tray bake,(ie. not a cake ) to be momentarily pedantic. Yeah, lets leave that exactly where it is shall we. Lest we find ourselves becoming unkind in the process of not quite managing to overlook what is a 'majeur signe de danger.', as far as Carrot Cakes go in my estimation.

The texture, once it was in the mouth? Well, it unfortunately gave the feeling, at just gone 9 am, of being already a bit dried out around the edges. Did it have substantial heft and moistness? No, I'm afraid not. On the tongue there was a distinct granular sensation, coming at you from two directions simultaneously. One from the tray bake mix itself which appeared to have a higher than usual broken nut, but still bland, constituency. The other was via the unspeakably thin layer of 'vegan?' frosting that tasted poorly mixed - still half marge / half Tate & Lyle. The Pecan bit, well, that must have been that one plonked in the middle of the gravelly frosting   

Now Hubby asked me, just out of polite interest, had any carrot been creatively wafted in the near vicinity of this tray bake mix? Well, here was the most curious phenomena of this tray bake, one I have never ever encountered before. It had a thin layer of grated carrot laid as a base for the tray bake mix to rest on top of. You could visibly see errant strands of suspiciously carroty orange venturing to be part of the main body of it, as if they knew in their heart of hearts, in their very genes, where they ought to be. Its almost as if this were either an after thought, or someone forgot an important ingredient for any carrot based confectionery. Say not so, Sir that they might have done this deliberately, for aesthetic reasons! Thankfully no marzipan carrots, even though Hubby confesses to quite liking them.  

How kind do I want to be? Well, this kind.

CARROT TRAY BAKE SCORE - 4/8