PERFECT CARROT CAKE

 Two Magpies Bakery, 88. High Street, Southwold, Suffolk The Two Magpies is a petite fronted cafe on the main street of Southwold. They are currently on something of pincer movement across the lowly mounds of Norfolk, with new sites recently opened, or due to open, in Norwich, Blackney and Holt. Stumbling across them on a jolly to a favourite seaside town in Suffolk, was an opportunity to get a sneak preview. Like casually encountering a caravan park arranged on a Stalinist Gulag theme, its not to be overlooked. The Southwold establishment is this aspirational chains source cafe. It is very tiny with only a few tables at the back and to one side of the serving counter. So the emphasis is primarily on takeaway. The first thing to notice is the terrific range of confectionery. I was absolutely wetting myself with glee at the choice. But I was thinking of my duty and devotion to you, dear readers, when I settled on a slice of carrot cake with my standard Flat White chaser. So, lets ge...

 Holt, Norfolk I will be kind - I will be kind - I will be kind - I will be kind - I will be kind.  But.......sometimes a café does not make it easy to be kind. So what follows is my very best attempt to be kind. Hubby and I have during the lock down taken a few longer walks around a country park. This time, because the cafe was now open, we had a coffee and a carrot cake - en plein air. I had no great expectations for either. I was disappointed, nor driven to splutter expletives. But, however, there was something very very wrong about this carrot cake. Quite apart from the cake, which we will come too soon enough, it was the butter cream, it had the most odd flavour. Hubby had the same cake as me and he reliably informs me that the buttercream, rather than being made with butter which its name you would have thought made it obvious what the main ingredient should be, was substituted with baking margarine. Yes, I was shocked too, if not jaw droppingly appalled. Hubby is sure i...

 Sheringham, Norfolk.. It's one measure of the effects of the lock down on the supply of carrot cakes to review. I'm now reduced to reviewing a loaf!  So here goes. Can a carrot loaf be thought of as a cake anyway? Isn't it just a tray bake by another name? Because if it is I refer you to the Golden Rules, they are not a cake. So I'm struck with force of a mallet ie not that subtly - that this loaf off the Market is not one either. Plain and naked, without any decoration, no marzipan carrot facsimiles, thankfully. Its a loaf that is sliced vertically, so its certainly not a wedge. Cakes are cut in wedges. Therefore this loaf is not a cake. Move on. I'm going to proceed as if I've not just said that, and just take this review as an exercise in culinary largesse.  The texture of this 'loaf' was the correct colour - 'Burnt Sienna'  and certainly in the right ballpark texture wise - a soft rubble. The base had the appearance of being slightly under c...

  Waitrose - Carrot & Passion Fruit Cake I understand its difficult to make even a half satisfactory carrot cake in a factory. A true carrot cake is a highly unsuitable recipe for mass production. Its not a sponge cake, its generally heavier than most cakes and hence can be unpredictable in its outcome and cooking time. This is why factory produced carrot cakes invariably turn out to be just spiced sponge cakes, incurring my wrath and wither because, like a drug addict, they can't stop themselves from breaking Golden Rule No 3. Cake makers,  whether in a factory or in a cafe kitchen, can resort to smoke and mirrors, giving a carrot cake an exotic sounding name or ingredient and sticking marzipan carrots on it - they look like a carrot cake - but they're not even a short stroll away from being one. So this Carrrot & Passion Fruit Cake from Waitrose was low in my expectations before I even snapped my lock down eroded dentures around it. They've branded it so because i...

  Perhaps I've erroneously assumed you all knew what The Golden Rules of Carrot Cake are. So I've decided to publish them. Here they all are then,the twelve guideline rules. Those things to look out for and be avoided by those who make carrot cakes and those who eat them. Never have to consume a malformed, unpleasant carrot cake ever again. You can no longer make the excuse that you did not know! Learn them or have your taste buds abused. Golden Rule of Carrot Cake No 1 A spice cake is not a carrot cake. This is blindingly obvious, but I have stomached this sort of fart inducing cake far far too many times. Grating a solitary carrot into a basic sponge mix, then trying to disguise the paltry amount of an essential carrot cake ingredient, by throwing in a whole sack load of mixed spice. This should fool no one of anyone discernment. It's not as if carrots are a rare and expensive root vegetable, they are not bleeding saffron! A bald man wearing a mismatched toupee only attra...

  Carrot Cake made by Sponge Cakes Ltd, Holt After the edible gloriousness of the last carrot cake recipe, did we now come crashing down to earth with a more prosaic version? Well, this slice of carrot cake was made by Sponge Cakes Ltd, situated on the delightfully named Sponge Rise in Holt. This is, wait for it, my first review of a mass produced gluten free carrot cake. Good, got that sentence out without implying a modicum of snooty disdain. Hubby and I were taking our last day off before re-opening the shop after lockdown. We were doing a favourite circular walk down the promenade from Wells next the Sea along the pinewoods to Holkham Bay, down Queen Anne's Drive to the Hall and back through the estate to Wells. On the way stopping off at the beach cafe for a takeaway coffee and cake. They'd just re-opened so the choice of cakes was not extensive or that appealing. Now that I'm not averse to reviewing commercially produced confectionery, I feel a degree of glee at embra...

  Recipe from the  BBC Good Food website a Classic Carrot Cake by Micheal Caines As this was to be my birthday cake, made for me by Hubby ( TDCP - The Demon Cake Professional ) even he expressed a certain nervousness about permitting me to review it.  However, once it came out well, and what's more one of the best carrot cake recipes that I've tasted, he was much happier to let me loose on a recipe review.  There are carrot cake recipes and then there are carrot cake inspired recipes. The latter perhaps started out believing they were carrot cakes, but ended up a sponge cake with mere decorative pretensions. This recipe is not one of those. One glance down the ingredients list and your jaw drops through the floor at '525gms of grated carrot!' Carrot cake recipes frequently operate between 150 - 350 gms max of carrot, most baulking at anything over 250 gms. One can perfectly understand why, because the more carrot you use the overall moisture level in the mix increase...

Castle Howard, Yorkshire. Its a glorious Winter's sunny day, we are at Castle Howard. The air is crisp, its bright, the colours and shadows are sharp. After a ramble around the landscaped estate grounds with its follies and bridges going absolutely nowhere in particular, we queued for much a needed lunch. The logistics and layout of The Courtyard Cafe leaves much to be desired, it is not a joy for anyone. It is as if whoever designed it wilfully ignored the most outstanding flaws in their own floor plan. No matter how busy the cafe is you will have to queue to be seated. Those who are incoming queue inside the entrance way where the outgoing are also trying to do their best to exit. Because the cafe's toilets are outside in the courtyard, people are understandably forever quickly nipping out for a pee or a poo, then back in again. All this accompanied by politely embarrassed side shuffling and  'sorry, can I just get by'.  Folk, all very like us, who after a grand morni...

Stamford, Lincolnshire As we returned from our North Yorkshire holiday we diverted our route home to take a B L F break ( bum, leg & food ) in Stamford. We also wanted to investigate a local fabric shop to see if they had anything to suitable for Cottonwood Home (there was). Stamford as a market town, is a place with it's own distinct charm, full of beautiful honey coloured stone fronted buildings, most of them significantly of a certain age and maturity. Though it looks as though Stamford ought to be a county town, it isn't, it is, however, slap bang next to Burleigh House and its estate. It is clear that this and its position by a main north south axis road have always left both hands deeply plunged into the lucre. But like any small town with a shopping centre across this island, in this era, it has significant missing teeth in its high street's dentures. There is also an uneasy 'ghetto zoning' of high and low end shops that betrays an unevenly spread wealth ...

Goodramgrate, York. You know how it is, your on holiday in Yorkshire, its mid January, you're prowling the streets looking for extra special cafes and cakes, but you aren't sure quite where to find them. So on an overcast afternoon on a day trip to York, we are on a mission to discover that unique cafe in possession of an excellent cake range, appetising in quality and confection. Not having much luck, we are beginning to become tired and dispirited. Then we stumbled across this cafe, gaze into the window at cakes with a certain rustic roughness, a finish frequently affected by cafes in cosmopolitan cities. What's more they do have a substantial looking carrot cake. Yes, this seemed very appealing, its an Italian family run cafe, what could possibly be wrong? Italy is the birth place of cafe culture, after all. The decor looks fine, quite modern with dark blue lampshades, gold lined inside, panted wood tables rubbed back, a thoroughly classic style of cafe environment. Yet ...