PERFECT CARROT CAKE

Folks Coffee Co, Holt, Norfolk Probably the newest cafe in Holt, let alone North Norfolk, Folks is developing a small scale Norfolk chain of cafes. One in Norwich, Blakeney and Heydon, now joined by this one here. Clean minimalist layout, light coloured tables with rather lovely bent wood pale rattan chairs, olive green table light, warm grey and white crockery. Folks Holt effortlessly nails the brief for a simply styled modern cafe.  It also produces a very fine Oat Latte. The cake range, though often limited, is always well made. So I could confidently order a Carrot Cake, which was really, as ever, the ubiquitous tray bake. But this being Holt, it wasn't considered acceptable to produce a passably fine tray bake, it had to do everything but put brass knobs on it.  So where shall I start in describing this tray bake? Well, what first attracts your eye is the huge amount of foof, the confected froth of stuff they put on top of it. Not just a Pecan nut, but also three small di...

Sheringham 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 k...

  Stiffkey, Norfolk. There are days, believe it or not, when I'm quite inclined to be a little less stern, a little less didactic, a little less proscriptive. Here, for the record, is one of them.  You should all know by now what I generally think about tray bakes. Or have you really not been paying sufficient attention? In brief, its lazy baking, it's not really a cake, it frequently hides faults that would clearly be seen were it a proper full sized cake. But halt, hold my horses before they bolt off into the wild horizon of fulmination and froth. Maybe it is possible for there to be exceptions made. If so, what would these be, and why? Please enlighten us, Oh carrot cake guru. Proceed to unfold your hidden truths. Stiffkey Stores, unsurprisingly is in Stiffkey. Part Post Office, part general corner shop, part cafe and part a low key interiors store. A current iteration which appear as to have been much more successful than previous ones. Its become a destination. Because it...

   Jarrolds Cafe, Letheringsett, Norfolk My last Carrot Cake Review was way back in July 2022, so just short of three years ago. Going on a diet started the trend away from Carrot Cake Reviews. Also I sensed there was little left to say in this regard, that I had not already ranted and raved about several times over. So why then have I returned to it now? Well, heaven knows.........but here goes. In our early years of moving to Norfolk, once we'd owned a car, we enthusiastically toured North Norfolk's cafes to establish which were the best ones were. We came to Back To The Garden, a Delicatessen and Cafe on the outskirts of Holt. That first visit was truly bad. The customer service was indifferent. So our coffee and cake arrived after an interminable wait between taking our order and it arriving on our table.The coffee had been so badly burnt its bitterness could've seared your taste buds medium rare. I can't remember what I chose for a cake, but whatever that was appar...

  Cromer, Norfolk. I mean, look at it. This feeble cake in its ill fitting paper dish. Already half sagging just with the gentle pressure of resting in it. It makes your heart doubly sink, that such a thing was thought decent to be brought into this world.   Now, I like this place they try their best to act ethically and responsibly. They run a great little outfit, friendly, well organised and plugged in to their community. Going there is one of our favourite morning treats before work. I've written in rhapsodic detail in a previous cake review about their carrot cake, made by her Mum.  May she live long and prosper. It is the bees knees - made out of carrot. And then there was this! Well, I guess they just needed to do it. Get the whole vegan carrot bake idea, off their chest, out of their system, a tick on their to do list - done. What's not to like? Well quite a lot actually.  ' I'd be interested in what you think of it'  they said to me. Obviously had n...

   Sheringham Norfolk Cafés in our town are ten a penny, really good ones are a rare species. Most are not bad. Pleasant, but average you might say. Nothing to, scare the horses by producing a well rounded Flat White with great richness and depth. Buying a coffee here generally blurs the boundary between a cappuccino and a latte, whatever the coffee variety actually be being made. This, in my experience, is not unique to this town. Suddenly, post pandemic, cafes in North Norfolk seem to have woken up to the fact that they are competing for business. Standards of confectionery have noticeably risen. The coffee quality has yet to follow suit. I do like this particular cafe, its very pretty, always has a welcoming feel and good customer service. Their coffee? Well let's just say three things - One, their Latte's are good. Two, their Flat White's come in two sizes Regular and Large. Three, their Latte's are good. Its a universal truth that any shop has its set of Unique Sel...

 Norwich, Norfolk. Just when you think there is nothing new in the world of Carrot Cakes, either to be said or reported upon. Then you encounter something you truly hope is a one off, an anomaly, a catering glitch in life's kitchen. But perhaps this is a perverted new trend in contemporary cafés. And you, having been the first to discover it, must then alert the world to its manifestation in the real world. Its criminal and pernicious consequences pointed out. Consider this your early warning Hubby and I were in Norwich. We'd just walked miles from the garage on the outskirts where we'd left Barbara to be investigated for a coolant leak. Desperate for a Flat White and a cake, as a well earned reward for making it this far on foot. Now Norwich, even if you only half know it, is not short of a cafe or two. We chose this particular cafe in Exchange street, simply because it was there. We walked in, it was our choice.  All I can say in our defense is - it looked welcoming, vagu...

  North Sea Coffee, Cromer Promenade, Cromer. You are not going to believe this, you are just not. A third carrot cake since lockdown finished and a third thumbs up. Have I turned into a push over during the last year? Now, I know some of you take a perverse delight in the more vitrolic reviews. The more fulminating a condemnation the better. To be honest I miss that too, it can be such a relief, like releasing a long held fart. Its cathartic. But the ultimate aim of these reviews is to praise the perfect carrot cake. So when I do find one it produces a teenage giggle of delight, that penetrates and rattles through the world weary cynicism of my sixty four year old form. So what do I say as I begin my review? Don't lose your perspective. Don't get carried away. Don't be deceived by fusspot and foofy presentation. ( that may just be another Golden Rule right there ) In this case it was somewhat the opposite. Don't be mislead by the first appearance of your cake being ser...

 Holt Garden Centre, Holgate Hill, Kelling, Norfolk We were on a mission, to buy a container for a recently bequeathed gooseberry bush. We start off at Holt Garden Centre because its the closest  Venturing further afield should it disappoint, and in the past it has done so, frequently. During the lockdowns  Holt Garden Centre has undergone a massive makeover, setting them back two million pounds. But the outcome of it all is a Garden Centre that knocks spots off most of the local competition. If I were to describe their previous cafe I'd have to say it was amateurish. Always looking if it was run by a gaggle of semi retired volunteers drawn from the Kelling WI - Friends of Holt Garden Centre division. The new cafe is large open, airy and no longer looks as though it was set up in a converted milking shed. Its stylish and spacious. Having quickly made our decision on the pot, we rewarded our aesthetic deliberations with a coffee and cake. And....they had a Carrot Cake. It ...

 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...

  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...

  Wells next the Sea, North Norfolk. One family appear to run a large part of the shops in Wells. The bakery has been there for decades and is a very traditional bakery that knows its market. To my tastebuds their cakes and pastries tend to be seriously over iced and are prone to prioritise size over taste. So a sweet pastry will be absolutely huge, but with sugar drowning out the strengths of any other flavourings.  Bigger is rarely ever better. On a day in the middle of lockdown when no cafes are open and only one bakery that coincidentally also serves coffee, and this was it. I thought 'go on give their carrot cake a whirl', broaden your case portfolio. The coffee was just a coffee, straightforwardly generic, nothing fancy. Though it too tasted sweet, probably due to dropping one of those small catering condensed cream pods into it. We also bought and ate a very tasty savoury Spinach & Feta Pasty. The carrot cake came in a cellophane fronted paper bag that had adhered t...

  Cromer, North Norfolk This visit and review took place and was written before the lockdown. This cafe is tucked to one side of the High Street facing the magnificent elegance and edifice that is Cromer Parish Church. The cafe is overlooked in many other ways, I'll mention two. One, in Winter its windows mist up so badly you'd think there was a sauna going on inside, and two, its a not fully convincing hybrid of cafe and art/craft gallery. From the street it presents a mixed message: what would make you go in there; what is this trying to be? Does the gallery have something to say other than the provision of quality caffeine and catering and is this integrated  into the ethos of the cafe as a whole, or is the rest of it solely a bit of arty set dressing? We've been to this place a few times, its never been atrociously bad, but any expectations of superlative coffee or cakes will always be shaken awake from their wistful dreaming. The art on show speaks volumes. The present...

  Hunstanton, West Norfolk. This Cafe overlooks the main green that slopes down towards the promenade, where everything that Hunstanton can throw at you as a childish diversion resides. The cafe's interior, sits uncomfortably between spacious and sparse. I'd like to say it was a symphony in grey, but that would require much more effort than the uniform pale grey tone here can make. Bare of much to ornament its walls without the satisfaction of achieving minimalism, it is, in short, characterless - with very sticky tabletops. It was a bit late in the day for a Flat White so I toned down the caffeine to a Latte. Not that I needed to let such cosmopolitan worries about caffeine intake get the better of me. The Latte came in a mug, yes, a generic white ceramic mug straight from the local cash and carry. The contents looked disconcertingly like used dishwater. Beneath its feeble frothy surface lay what was in fact just an ordinary milky cup of coffee. Inoffensive were it not for its...

Wells-Next-The -Sea, North Norfolk. This cafe sits opposite Wells Harbour. It was the first cafe in Wells to dump the standard cottage tearoom mode for something designed more for contemporary cafe culture. The serving counter always has a sizable range of cakey nibbles on display. The staff, though friendly, do seem to be working within a certain level of self preoccupation. On this visit the display did include a carrot cake, so I felt a review stirring in my loins before I'd ordered it with the ubiquitous chaser of a flat white. As I always eat and drink with Jesus in my heart, I'll try to be kind. The cafe decor doesn't quite gel. It appears as though furnished with cast offs from British Heart Foundation. You sort of know what they're aiming for, a stylistically eclectic mix of chairs and tables, creating a characterful boho feel. But here there is raging disharmony, classic bentwood chairs and bamboo garden furniture do not sit well together. It appears don...

Burnham Market, North Norfolk. This place has a narrow frontage with the cafe going back a long long way, like an ever narrowing tunnel. On a windy and wet day in February it had a very local feel. Similar to wandering into a local people's pub, where all eyes swivel to look questioningly at you the moment you entered - 'Ah, here be foreigners.' Apart from the clientele something in the whole cafe layout and ambiance just felt uncomfortably wrong. For Burnham Market, usually a beacon for the high end and expensive, it has what can only be described as a 'homely scruffiness.' You need to descend further into its darker recesses in order to view the cakes. I dimly peered at them, everything looked dark brown, and it was hard to discern what the labels said. So I ordered what I believed to be a carrot cake, along with my usual flat white. Now, I have a word or two to say about flat whites. If you order a flat white and they ask you at the counter...

Holkam, Norfolk. We became fond over the Summer last year of the walk from Wells next the Sea across the Holkham Estate to the Hall. So on a bright breezy Sunday morning in February we set off.  Now there is also an additional incentive, a revamped Courtyard with a spacious,well designed cafe and larger gift shop. Holkham Hall Estate does seems at present to be outrunning the National Trust with the stylish improvements to its facilities. Though a bit more attention to the quality of their cakes is called for. Hubby separate from me chose an Apple Spice Cake and I picked a Carrot Cake from off their confectionery table. Only when we sat down at a table was it clearly apparent how very very similar they looked.  The only thing to externally distinguish one from t'other was the sugar dusted frosting on the Apple Spiced Cake, and the walnut pieces on the Carrot Cake. I tried a fork full of Hubby's cake, he had a fork full of mine, and guess what? they tasted exactly the s...