Legendary CARROT CAKE - Steve's Legendary Carrot Cake!

[00:00:02][music] [music] Hi everybody and welcome to my kitchen.

[00:00:18]Look at what we're making. We are making Steve's [music] legendary carrot cake. And it looks spectacular, doesn't it? and you wait until you try this one. You are going to love it. Now, Steve was kind enough to send this recipe in and he says it's an absolute favorite [music] amongst his friends and relatives. It's a cake that is requested often [music] and now he has shared his famous recipe with us. Well, with me and I can share it with you. [music] He said good. So, I'll move this out of the way. We'll get started and I will show you how easy it was to make this legendary [music] carrot cake or Steve's legendary carrot cake. Okay, stop looking at it. Let's get started. So, I think I'm sorted with all of our ingredients. I did all the prep first. So, we can just whip this together. Now, I'm going to follow Steve's instructions to the letter. We cannot get this cake wrong. We have to get it right. After all, legendary carrot cake. This cake must be pretty good. So, the first thing we want to do is add some oil. And I'm just using olive oil today. And that's 230 mil.

[00:01:30]Weird way to start a cake, isn't it? But we're doing as we're told. And then into here, we're adding some yogurt. And 100 g of yogurt. And that's just the plain natural yogurt that I make myself. And then into here, we're putting four eggs.

[00:01:44]And four large eggs. I'm back to my regular eggs. So, I think we're good to crack them straight in. And I think that classifies as large.

[00:01:59]And then into here, we just want to add our orange zest. And that is the zest of one orange.

[00:02:06]And you be careful when you're zesting yours. I was no injuries today. And then we're also putting 1 and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract or thereabouts. Oh, I'm getting down to that last little bit, I think.

[00:02:23]Oh, yeah. Maybe a little bit more. And now Steve says, "Give this a whisk until it smells and looks like orange yogurt."

[00:02:33]I'll give you a look at it first.

[00:02:37]Oh, and now I'll keep whisking.

[00:02:40]See what it looks like. And that looks pretty good. It's nice and smooth. and the zest of the orange and the egg yolks. Oh, that's a nice color, isn't it?

[00:02:50]And then we can just set that aside. And now we need some flour. And we're using 265 g of self-raising flour. And we have to sift that. Surprise. We're sifting.

[00:03:03]And I just so happen to have a surprise for you guys. And voila, we have one. I found one. Now I've got to get that into here. Do you reckon I just pour it or should I spoon it? I'm just going to pour it. Oh, yeah.

[00:03:19]And then you can just sift away. Look how neat this will be.

[00:03:28]Exactly what I needed, huh? Now, that was pretty good. That didn't even get or a little bit. I was going to say it didn't even get around the edge of my bowl ever so slightly. That is the way to go for me. And now we're putting some sugar. Now Steve uses musavado sugar in his cake, which we don't really have.

[00:03:47]Well, if we do, it wasn't at the supermarket for me. But I did quickly look up how you can make it and what substitutes we can use. So we want 335 g of the musavado sugar, but I made my own. So the ratio was 1 and 1/2 cups of my caster sugar to about 1 and 1/2 tablespoon of molasses and that weighed out perfectly to 335 g. Hopefully that made sense. But if you don't want to go to the trouble to make that sugar, you can just use dark brown sugar. But it won't have that real molassesy taste that we're chasing. So, it was easy just to make your own.

[00:04:36]And you can smell the molasses in that sugar. It smells nothing like brown sugar. So, I'm glad I made my own. But just make sure you rub your molasses all through your sugar. And it starts to look like brown sugar. Now, Steve said that we were supposed to sift that sugar, but I do not like the chances of me getting that wet sugar through my sifter. So, I'm going for option two, and that's just give it a really good mix through your flour until you've got no lumps. And if that means getting your fingers in there, well, we're getting our fingers in there. And yep, I'm going in. So, you choose which option you want. You can either sift your sugar through or you can just put it in and make sure there's no lumps with your hand. Oh, yeah. There's one. And then Steve says, just give your bowl a bit of a tap.

[00:05:26]And if you've got any lumps in your sugar, they will come to the surface and you can just squash them out.

[00:05:33]Right up my alley, Steve. And now we've got it all nicely combined. It does resemble sand.

[00:05:42]Beautiful. Now, what else are we adding?

[00:05:44]And now we just want to add some cinnamon. And it's 1 and 1/4 teaspoon.

[00:05:48]Get my new ones out. Let's find the one.

[00:05:51]Right. That took me long enough to find it, didn't it? Where was I? 1 and 1/4 teaspoon. And then we want a teaspoon of fresh nutmeg. So yes, we're going to be grating. I'll get a bigger one this time so I don't take a finger off. And I'll go easy.

[00:06:09]Oh, I dropped it, but I didn't have any injuries. Little bit more. And we're almost one teaspoon, I think. I won't press my luck. And now we just give that a mix through. Make sure all of our spices are mixed in there. And now we're just going to add our wet ingredients into here and get it all well combined.

[00:06:27]Giving this a quick little whisk.

[00:06:29]Steve's instructions, not mine. And then we get that in.

[00:06:35]Oh, I think this is going to be a good cake, Steve.

[00:06:42]And now we can put our carrots. And we're just going to stir that through.

[00:06:46]Now it's 265 g of grated carrot. And that's about three. I used one big one and two small ones. And look how orange they are. They're beautiful. Aussie carrots were on special last week, so that was a bonus, wasn't it? Oh, look at this. And now we just give that another mix through.

[00:07:10]And then we've got 100 g of sultanas.

[00:07:13]Now, you can use sultanas or raisins, but I chopped mine up. And I am using sultanas. I chopped mine up because some people just do not like that whole sultana in their cake. They just don't like it. So if you chop it up, they won't even know it's in there. But if you don't have anyone fussy, then you just leave yours whole. And then before I forget, we're adding a nice big pinch of salt. And then of course, we want some nuts in here. Now you can use walnuts or pecans. I'm using pecans today. And there's 100 g, but we're having it. We're only putting 50 g in the cake batter. There's plans for the other half, don't worry. And then one last stir, making sure you've got nothing stuck on the bottom of your bowl and it's all well combined. And wow, this smells good. And now we can get on to our pans. And I have also preheated my oven at about the 160° C. And as always, if you don't have a fan, you put yours at about the 180. And then we want two 20 cm round cake pans. Now, obviously, I didn't have two of these and I don't have two of those, so I'm using one spring and one just plain.

[00:08:28]Now, thanks to you guys for your pro tips, we're using a cake release little formula. A cake release formula. Is that what you would call it? Well, that's what we're using today. And I have made the recipe that you guys suggested. I put a/4 of a cup of plain flour to a/4 of a cup of olive oil and then just mixed it together. And that is what we grease our pan with. And what you don't use, you just pop it straight back in your fridge and you just keep using it.

[00:08:59]What a great pro tip is that. My cake better come out. And I'm giving that a really good coating. I'm not taking any chances on this. I must say I am a little bit nervous though. I haven't used this before. I have faith in you guys though. If you say it will work, it will work. This stuff might be really good to use in those cinnamon doughnut muffins because they are so sticky. I bet you if you coated your pan with this, they'd come out easy. I'll give it a go and I'll let you know. And then what we don't use, we just put in the fridge and we can just continue to use it. And now we've just got to get this batter evenly into these two pans. And I want mine to be pretty spot-on for Steve.

[00:09:54]I ended up just eyeballing it. Sorry, Steve. Hopefully I have them nice and even. And then we're just going to get these in our oven. And we're only going to cook them for about 25 minutes, maybe 30.

[00:10:08]Now, my oven's only quite small, so I've got one of my cakes in the middle and one on the top. So, I'm going to set my timer for about 15 minutes. And at the 15 minute mark, that gives me a chance to turn my cakes or alternate them. Do whatever I want. See you in 15 minutes.

[00:10:25]Oh, these little cakes are looking good.

[00:10:28]Now, I've been fiddling with them. They have had just over 25 minutes. Let's give them a stab. And you can see that I didn't evenly distribute my batter. This cake is definitely bigger.

[00:10:43]Oh, [sighs] I reckon they're cooked, Steve. Oven off. And then we can just let these cool for a minute in the pan. Now, I can see that my cake has come away from the outside of that pan. So, that little pro tip with that cake release scoop, whatever you want to call it. Fantastic.

[00:11:06]I reckon it worked. You can see that it's come away from the sides. What a game changer that stuff is. So, anyway, we'll leave those to sit and cool so we don't make a mess of them. And then we'll get them out onto a wire rack so they cool faster. And then we can get on to our icing. I don't know about you guys, but this is the hardest part for me once it's out of the oven, leaving it alone. So, I'm just going to go and find something else to do. Otherwise, I'll just keep poking at them.

[00:11:35]So, my cakes have been sitting there for a whole 5 minutes. You know, I don't wait the 10 minutes, and they feel like they've firmed up enough that I can get them out. So, let's go. Let's see how well that stuff worked.

[00:11:50]Oh, nothing happened.

[00:11:55]Oh, yes it did.

[00:11:59][gasps] Wow. Wow, that was pretty cool. No paper, no butter, just the oil and flour mix. And now you can see why they call it a cake releaser.

[00:12:12]Now that's a game changer. So there's one of our little cakes. That looks fantastic.

[00:12:18]Oh, you've got to be happy with that.

[00:12:20]I'll get another rack now. Let's see if this one just flips out without actually undoing the pan.

[00:12:28]Oh, I think we need to release the hand.

[00:12:35]Oh, now I'm just running my knife ever so slightly around there. It feels a bit stuck. I'm a little bit nervous. Maybe I should have put paper. Oh no, I think it's coming.

[00:12:52]Oh, I'll flip it that way. Oh, we made it.

[00:12:57]It did get a little bit stuck. Next time if I use that pen, I'll put a piece of paper. But never mind. Oh, I nearly dropped it. Never mind. It's out.

[00:13:11]And there we have our two beautiful little cakes. Now we have to let them cool. Now I rushed ahead on the vegan chocolate cake, didn't I? Well, these ones I am going to let completely cool because then we're going to ice them with this cream cheese frosting that everybody loves cream cheese frosting on a carrot cake. This is going to be one special cake. So, my cakes have been sitting there for probably about 10 15 minutes and they feel pretty good. By the time we do this cream cheese frosting, they'll be good to go. So, the first thing we want for Steve's legendary cream cheese frosting is our icing sugar. And I have already sifted that. My new little sifter wasn't so good with the rough icing sugar, but we got there in the end. And I've got 300 g.

[00:14:03]Now, Steve says that these make beautiful little cupcakes. And if you want more frosting than we're making today, you go right ahead and double it.

[00:14:13]And then we've got 100 g of salted butter, not unsalted, salted.

[00:14:20]And then I'm just going to get my little handheld in here and whisk it until it's nice and smooth. See how much mess I can make. Go slow.

[00:14:34]I would like to say everything's going a lot better in the kitchen today. Not as many disasters. But I shouldn't say that, should I? Cuz then I go and jinx myself. Maybe I'm just trying a bit harder today. And you shouldn't talk when you're doing this because I can taste all the icing sugar dust going in my throat. Zip it. Now, it's pretty cold here today, so my butter is pretty hard and it's struggling to combine. So, I'm just going to put a little bit of the cream cheese in.

[00:15:01]A little bit of the 100 grams of cream cheese just to help it on its way.

[00:15:15]And that did the trick. That got it all going. So, now we can add some more. So, Steve says just add this a little bit at a time so you don't split your icing.

[00:15:26]So, just a little bit.

[00:15:28]Maybe half then half. And I don't know about you, but cream cheese frosting, it's got to be a favorite. Hey. So, now let's go for it.

[00:15:38][groaning] [screaming] And remembering to scrape down those sides. And then one last whisk. You just want to make sure you don't have any little chunks of butter through it and everything's nice and smooth for your cake. And it does. Look at that. It looks beautiful.

[00:16:02]And that's it. We're done. And you know for sure I am licking these beers. So you'll have to just excuse me for a minute. What was your favorite beater as a kid? Mine was the Pavlova. I loved licking the Pavlover beater. And my mom's got an old Sunbeam mixer. And the beers on those are quite big. But me being me, I never thought she left enough on the beater for us. That'll do me for now. Now, when Steve puts his cake together, he likes to keep the cakes upright. He's not going to do what I usually do and put the flat side up.

[00:16:39]So, we're going to do it exactly the same way he does. Now, which way around do you want to have them? Do you want to have the bigger one on the bottom and the smaller one on the top? That's exactly what I'm thinking. Great minds think alike, eh? Now, I've got plans for this cake. So, I'm putting mine on my cake stand. Straight on there. Oh, yeah.

[00:17:00]Feels good.

[00:17:04]And now we're just going to put half of our frosting on the base and then the other half on the top. We're doing it exactly how Steve says. So, I better get something to smooth that out with.

[00:17:15]Voila.

[00:17:20]So about half and then we can just spread away. Now Steve says he does not take his too far to the edge. He likes to leave it a little bit tucked in. So that's what we're going to try and do.

[00:17:32]Don't push it too far.

[00:17:44]And then once you're happy that it's all nice and even, we can get this top layer on. Now, don't drop it and be gentle.

[00:17:52]Now, my cake ended up with a little bit of a lip around it. But I'm not going to be too worried about that because I think the frosting will cover it. Or do you think I should give it a trim?

[00:18:04]H. Should I? Shouldn't I? Nah, let's just cover it up.

[00:18:13]Now, that was a bit more gentle than Cameo's cake, wasn't it? And then Steve says, just give it a push.

[00:18:20]Just give it a really nice push to just sandwich it together.

[00:18:25]Oh, that feels good squashing your cake.

[00:18:27]Feels a bit naughty. And now we can just get the rest of this frosting onto the top of this cake. Now, Steve doesn't go all the way around the outside, so we're not doing that today either. We're just going on the top.

[00:18:43]I've probably got a little bit more than half left, but that's fine. I don't mind more on the top. And then we just go for it. Just smooth it out. Oh, yeah. Look at this.

[00:18:57]And then I'm just pushing my frosting right down to that little lip that I had going on and you won't even see it.

[00:19:07]And then once you're happy with it all smoothed out, you can lick that and we'll put some nuts on. So we saved our other 50 g of nuts and we're just going to go for it and sprinkle these on the top. And I don't care if they go all over my cake plate. It doesn't matter.

[00:19:35]And then that's it. Now you've just got to put it in the fridge for 24 hours before you can eat it.

[00:19:42]As if. We just have to leave that sit there until it firms up a little bit and then we can slice it open. Now, if it's really hot in your kitchen, you might want to put this in the fridge. But it's quite cold here today, so that'll firm up in no time. And I don't know about you guys, but that looks like one cracker of a cake, doesn't it? Now, Steve isn't just great at sharing his recipes. And obviously, if he's sharing recipes like this, then he's a pretty good cook. And Steve has started up his own YouTube channel, and you can check him out at Bake with Steve. And make sure you give him a big thumbs up for sharing this recipe. Bet you can't wait to have a slice of this one just a little bit longer. So, I've just finished having a bit of a clean up.

[00:20:27]I've just put the coffee machine on and I think it just might be time. Now, I always ask you guys, how big a piece would you like? But I know you're going to want a big bit of this.

[00:20:41]Now, I'm not going to worry about getting my little cake lifter. I'm just going to use my knife.

[00:20:47]Oh, and look at this.

[00:20:51]Oh, look at this cake. It's amazing.

[00:20:58]Now, as always, I always ice my cake when it's still a little bit warm. And you can see that the frosting there is a little bit soft, but that'll firm up as the cake cools. But anyway, I'm going in. But before I do, I'll just give you a closeup of the cake. You can see the carrot and the little bits of peel and the little bits of fruit in there. Wow, this is going to be perfect. I just know it. I'm going in for some of the top so that I'll get a heap of those nuts.

[00:21:27]Anyway, let me taste it and I'll let you know what I think.

[00:21:33]I'll just have to have another little bit.

[00:21:36]Just a little bit more just to make sure I can taste everything. Oh my gosh. Wow. That is fantastic. I thought I had a pretty good carrot cake recipe, but I think you're right, Steve. This one is legendary. And doesn't it make a huge cake? Look at this.

[00:22:03]Wow, Steve. I'm super impressed with this cake. And it was pretty easy to make. And honestly, I can taste so many things going on in this cake. You could take this cake anywhere. So the next occasion you've got coming up or if you just want to make it for yourself, you go right ahead and do it. But I tell you what, you take that to a party and you're going to be the favorite in no time. So I won't just stand here and smash the rest of this. I'll make myself a coffee and I'll sit down like a ladder. But I have every intentions of eating [music] every bit of that. So a big thumbs up for Steve. And if he's making recipes like this on his channel, wow, we've [music] got some recipe sharing to do. So, until next time, take care and enjoy your carrot cake because I know I'm going to. Oh, and thanks everybody for remembering to click that like and subscribe.

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