Velvet Antlers Iced Carrot Cake

Oh yeah, it's as good as it looks. This week's recipe is our Carrot Cake, made last night again by Dave, who couldn't wait any longer for Claire to get it made!

Ingredients:

250 grams of carrots, grated

3 medium eggs

130ml vegetable oil

150g caster sugar

230g self-raising flour

1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

Icing:

120 grams cream cheese

120 grams icing sugar

Preheat your oven to 180 celcius or gas 4. Mix your eggs, oil and caster sugar together in a bowl, then add the flour, baking powder and a bicarb and beat the mix well. Stir in the grated carrots and pour the mixture into a lined loaf tin. Bake for 50 minutes until browned and firm on top. Leave the cake in it's tin for 5 minutes on a rack, then turn it out to cool while you get the icing ready.

Mix your cream cheese and icing sugar tegether and beat well until its really smooth.

Ice with a pallet knife and put the cake in the fridge for a bit if you want to firm up the icing.

Tip: get your husband to do all of the above.

Velvet Antlers Power Pancakes

After many requests we have finally given in - here is the recipe for our killer pancakes. These started off as my baby, a breakfast I made regularly for Dave which I gathered from an old book of Scottish recipes from Skye. The original recipe was for traditional Scottish Drop Scones (many small pancakes). I experimented with the vanilla (a favourite of mine) but stuck firmly to making the small drop scones - perfect for eating with one hand with a mouse in the other. But after Dave liked them so much for climbing fuel and took up the pancake mantle, he opted for more American style large pancakes.

This is a simple recipe, so where can you go wrong? Don't underestimate the effect of flour quality! Our wisdom garnered from the glitterati of Scottish cooking has led us to McDougalls flour in the UK. Try it back to back with the supermarket's own brand flour lurking in your cupboard and be amazed! Laterally, Dave experienced new levels of fluffiness using Spanish flour, which he attributed to higher levels of raising agent. Since then we've experimented with adding a smidgen (if you are not familiar with this standard Scottish unit of measurement click here) of baking soda to achieve new levels of fluff.

Ingredients

4oz the best self-raising flour you can get your hands on (wholemeal is nice too)

1oz caster sugar

1/4 pint milk

1 medium egg

1 dribble of vanilla extract

optional smidgen of baking soda

Seive the flour into a bowl and add the sugar and baking soda. beat the egg into the milk and vanilla and add to the dry mix. Stir until you ave a smooth batter, adding more wee drops of milk if it's too thick.

Spoon into a hot pan (with a little sunflower oil) if making drop scones of pour straight from the bowl for big panakes. Serve up with maple syrup, jam, butter, bacon, fruit or whatever takes your fancy...

Then have a good day.

Velvet Antlers Lentil & Bacon Soup

Velvet Antlers Lentil and Bacon soup

Here is another all time favourite of ours, made frequently through the winter months in our massive pot which Dave got for christmas a couple of years back. This soup, like most homemade soup of course, can’t really be beaten for being gorgeous to eat, very healthy and being cheap and really easy to make.

Ingredients:

350 grams red split lentils
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
5 slices of bacon medallions
2 medium onions
3 carrots
3 sticks of celery
1.6 litres of water
Salt and black pepper

Wash the lentils in a sieve and then leave to soak in warm water for 30 minutes. In the meantime, chop the bacon and vegetables. Heat the oil then fry the bacon and add the vegetables, frying until soft.

Drain the lentils and add these and the water to the vegetables. Add the salt and pepper. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove any scum and for best results leave to cool for a while and blend the soup.

Enjoy. And thanks for all the messages letting me know how much you enjoyed my gingerbread!

Yummy Coconut Macaroons

Last night a couple of people told me that they had made gingerbread and lemon icing after I had out the recipe up on here. Inspired that people were going into the kitchen and knocking out some fantastic home-baked goods after reading about it on a blog, here is the recipe for the tasty coconut macaroons that I made for last nights party that seemed to go down well (again, courtesy of my second favourite domestic goddess, Nigella.)

2 large egg whites
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
100g caster sugar
30g ground almonds
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
250g shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 170°C/gas mark 3.

Beat the egg whites until just frothy and add the cream of tartar. Beat until soft peaks are formed then add the caster sugar a teaspoon at a time until it’s finished. This is extremely good endurance training for your forearms – it takes ages.

Fold in the almonds, salt, vanilla and coconut. Shape into 8-10 wee domes, pop them on a lined baking sheet; stick them in the oven for about 20 minutes until they are turning golden brown, cool on a wire rack and hey presto! Yummy coconut macaroons.

And in case you were wondering, Mr MacLeod is my most favourite domestic goddess.