This week was a very special one, Tuesday was Rafa’s birthday!! I wanted to surprise him, since I wasn’t able to give him the present that I had in mind, so I decided to bake him a cake! Some of you may be thinking…really, a cake?! Yes! I do not have a great history with cakes, I cook a lot of good things around here, but I always had trouble with cakes…some of then didn’t grow, some weren’t baked right…so you can imagine the level of anxiety I was feeling when I decided to bake a cake, it couldn’t go wrong! And guess what, it didn’t! A big HOORAY for me!! hahaha

One of Rafa’s favourite cake is carrot cake, so I decided to go with that. I got in touch with my cousin in Brazil, how is like the goddess of desert in our family, and asked if she knew a good recipe of carrot cake…of course she did! Now guys, this is no ordinary american carrot cake, this is a typical brazilian carrot cake, with a very, very sweet topping. But if you have a sweet tooth, please be my guest and try it!

Recipe:

4 medium or 6 small carrots

4 eggs

1 cup of oil (I used sunflower oil), actually she told me to use 3/4 cup of oil and 1 tblsp of margarine, she said it makes the cake more fluffy

2 cups of flour

2 cups of sugar

1 tblsp baking powder

Note: I used a cup of 250 ml to do this recipe.

I am so happy to bake things here in Berlin, I used organic eggs and carrots for this recipe, the price is very affordable, which sadly is very different in Brazil.

Preheat the oven to 220 celsius degrees. Peel the carrots and cut them not to big, place it in the blender with the eggs, oil and margarine, and blended it really well, it must not have lumps of carrot in it.

In a big bowl, sift together the flour, sugar and baking powder, and mix. Pour all the carrot mix in the bowl and whisk until the batter is nice and smooth, like the picture. Grease a baking pan with butter and flour, and place the batter in it.

Place the pan in the oven, and turn down the heat to 170 celsius degrees (don’t forget this very important step!) I have never in my life used a baking pan with a removable bottom to bake a cake, but it’s the only round one that I have, I was terrified that the batter would start dripping in the oven, but it didn’t!

In my oven, the cake took 50 minutes to bake, but when the time hit 40 minutes, I went to check it with the old toothpick trick, I sticked it first on the side, and it came out dry, so I thought that it was already done, but then I sticked it in the middle of the cake and toothpick came out dripping with batter, people, I went crazy! I thought the sides were going to burn before the middle was baked, it was the longest 10 minutes of my life! hahaha In the end it came out just fine!

😀 😀 😀

Here comes the crazy sweet topping:

1 can condensed milk

1 tblsp margarine

3 tblsp chocolate powder

the sprinkles are there just to make it into a birthday cake…ha!

If you’re a Brazilian, you are well aware that the topping is our famous “brigadeiro”, but if you’re not, there is a small chance you know what it is. I’m sure you can do another topping that isn’t so sweet! But this one is pretty easy to make…easy for me now, because in my early days, I have already burn it, yes, shame on me! I’m telling you guys, this cake had everything to go wrong, but luckily it didn’t 🙂

Place all the ingredients in a small pan and mix it non stop in low heat for about 10 minutes. Sorry for this picture, I had to take it with my phone, I couldn’t stop stirring!

Then you just have to pour the brigadeiro on top of the cake, of course! Though, I did a rookie mistake, after I poured the topping I decided to let it cool down first, then add the sprinkles, because I thought they would melt. But then, when I added the sprinkles, they rebounded everywhere! Living and learning…now I know!

I did this pretty fast on Tuesday afternoon, because I still had to meet Rafa at the bar where he was celebrating his birthday with friends. We came home at 2 a.m. where he found his surprise waiting for him!

Wouldn’t be a birthday cake without candles, am I right?!

We are getting old around here, people! hahaha We sang happy birthday, and he blew out his candles!

And we ate two pieces of cake each to help our glucose level rise a bit after a few drinks! hahaha

May I say the cake was more than perfect, I really was amazed!! At least this time I got to surprise him with something, because he always knows what I got him, he is like Patrick Jane, but with presents, it’s annoying! hahaha He knew that those little gifts where pens! But the smile on his face was priceless with the surprise!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

xx