Our Valentine's Day Cakewith Almond, Carrot and Cream Cheese Frosting

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN 
PER ITALIANO

I had been searching for an heart shaped Valentine's Day cake recipe when I met this one on Pinterest last year. The link took me to a web site, Forum Thermomix, which I was quite familiar with. JulieO, one of the forum's hero members, found this splendid recipe on UK Thermomix web page and served it decorated with a delicious cream cheese frosting.

As a matter of fact, what I had in mind was more like a red or pink coloured cake but I fell in love with the looks of this one. It kind of reminds me wedding cakes. This could be a nice recipe to serve in anniversaries as well.

I would recommend you though not to wait too long to bake it if you miss out Valentine's Day opportunity. It is beautiful, delicious, impressive. I prepared it countless other times since last year.

The recipe is originally intended for a 26cm diameter cake pan. Julie is using a 26cm pan too. My heart shaped pan instead, is a smaller one as you can see from the pictures. This being the case I needed make a few modifications on the original recipe. I basically reduced all the ingredients by 1/3. I believe it would be good for a 20cm pan.
(Note: The pictures that show the pan size are from another recipe so here is the explanation for the brown colored base in the photo)

While reading the ingredients, on the left you can see the original amounts which are intended for a 26cm pan. On the right instead you'll see the amount I used for my pan.


Ingredients:

Cake:
300g 200g blanched almonds
300g 200g sugar
Peel of 1 lemon (without the white)
300g 200g carrot, roughly chopped
4    3 eggs
80g  60g flour
2 1 tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt

Frosting:
250g 170g Philadelphia
210g 140g sugar
2 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
Toasted almond flakes
Kavrulmuş file badem
Candy decorations as you wish


Preparation:

• Grind almonds for 15 seconds on Speed 10. Check and if needed grind for 5 - 10 more seconds. Set aside.

• Put sugar and lemon peel. Pulverize for 20 seconds on Speed 10.

• Add carrots and chop for 5 seconds on Speed 5.

• Scrape down sides of TM Bowl with Spatula, add eggs, flour, baking powder, ground almond and salt. Mix 20 seconds on Speed 5. Scrape down sides of TM Bowl with Spatula and mix 5 seconds more on Speed 5.

• Pour the batter into the cake pan which is previously greased and floured (or covered with baking paper).

• Bake for 50 - 60 minutes in preheated oven at 180°C. Check for doneness with a toothpick. (In my case it took 50 minutes)
• Remove from the oven. Let it cool.

• Remove from the pan. Let it cool.

Frosting:

• Pulverize sugar for 30 seconds on Speed 10. Clean down the sides with spatula.
• Add Philadelphia and lemon juice, combine for 25 seconds on Speed 4. Mix for other 5 - 10 seconds if needed.

• Spread it over the cake.  

• Decorate as you wish. Sprinkle with toasted flaked almonds.

• Store in the fridge.

Enjoy....

On last year's Valentine's Day we had two big slices each and here is the proof ;)

This cake lasted only two days in our household and we are only two! ;)

You can see the original recipe here.
You can see JulieO's version here.
Many thanks to everyone who shared and contributed in this recipe...