Ingredients - for the cake
5 medium-sized carrots - sliced
1 large orange – juice and zest
125 ml Sunflower Oil oil
375 grams caster sugar
4 large eggs, separated
350 grams plain flour
15 grams Baking Powder
3 rounded teaspoons Mixed Spice

For the icing:
225g/8oz full fat soft cheese, at room temperature
65g/2½oz unsalted butter, at room temperature
400g/14oz icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla essence

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius or Gas Mark 4.

Grease a 30cm round cake tin with butter and lightly dust with flour – tap the bottom to shake off any excess flour.

Method

Place the carrots in a saucepan, just cover with water and add the orange juice and orange zest. Bring to the boil and cook until tender. Drain.

Put the carrots, sunflower oil, sugar and 4 egg yolks in to blender or food processor and blend to a purée. Leave to cool.

Whisk the egg whites until stiff and set aside.

Place the carrot purée in a mixing bowl and gently fold in the flour, mixed spice and baking powder. Mix well together. Gently fold in the egg whites. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40-45 minutes until golden and cooked. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing, cream the cheese and the butter together until smooth. Add the icing sugar and vanilla essence, and beat until smooth. This frosting is rich, thick and delicious. Spread the icing generously over the top of the cake.

Note: You can, if you wish, cut the cake in half. Make a little more icing [perhaps another half again] and put some of the icing on between the two halfs and sandwich together.

Alternatively you can make a cream to go in the middle with following -

500ml double cream
3 tbsp orange flavoured liqueur

Whisk the double cream until thick but not stiff and gradually stir in the liqueur.

Ingredients:

6 ounces Butter - softened
6 ounces Caster Sugar
6 ounces Self Raising Flour
1 pinch Salt
3 large Eggs
Coffee
Sugar
Brandy
½ pint Double Cream
Flaked Almonds

Method
Cream butter and sugar together until light and creamy, add the eggs one at a time and beat together thoroughly.

Sieve flour and salt into a baking bowl. Add to the creamed mixture folding in gently. Put mixture into a greased ring mould or cake tin if not available and bake at 190 degrees Celsius or Gas Mark 5 for 25 to 30 minutes.

Turn cake out on to a wire rack and allow to cool.

Make ½ pint strong dark coffee, add sugar and brandy to taste. Replace the cake in mould, pour over the sweetened coffee and allow to soak overnight.

Turn out onto a serving plate and decorate with cream and flaked almonds..

I was so intrigued to be asked this question via email that I just had to answer. I have only made butter once or twice in my lifetime, but both times it was so easy and the results so effective that I was sure I would never go back to bought butter again.

Butter, as you are probably aware, is produced by churning cream until the fats separate from the liquid (buttermilk) and the butter is in a semi-solid state. Now the butter you buy in the supermarket is more often than not made by extracting small amounts of cream from whey, a by-product of cheese-making, using large centrifuges. The butter made at home, on the other hand uses the cream directly from whole milk.

The common misconception among many is that you would need specialist equipment to make butter, but this is not the case - your regular food processor, for example, would work just as well.

Ingredients

2 cups heavy whipping cream, or double cream