Mini Carrot Cakes

I'll admit I'm not good at making actual cakes. I avoid making them at all costs and prefer making mini cakes or cookies which you might have noticed. I wanted to make carrot cake to go with the left over white chocolate buttercream I made for my matcha macarons.

So I found a recipe for mini ones which was actually really easy to make.

Ingredients:

250g Carrots

200g Sugar

150g Margarine

200g Plain Flour

2 tsp Cinnamon

2 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

2 Large Eggs

120g Sultanas

60g Toasted Flaked Almonds
(You can use any other nut you like. Walnuts also work well)

You will also need:

Mixing bowl

Sieve

Wooden spoon

Measuring spoon

Scales

Small bowl

Fork

Cake cases

2 Cake trays

Oven 200°C

Baking time 20 minutes

Method:

Grate your carrots into a bowl, add the sugar, margarine and mix it all together with your wooden spoon

Then sift your flour, baking powder and cinnamon into your mixture and mix it all together.

In a separate bowl whisk your eggs with a fork and your vanilla extract.

Then add it to your mixture.

Then add your sultanas and nuts.

Once your mixture has been fully combined - It's quite a wet mixture you can divide them evenly into your cake cases.

The recipe was to make 12 and I ended up 19.

Bake them in the oven for 20 minutes until they have fully risen and golden. You can place a knife into the middle and check it comes out clean to check they are fully baked.

Place them onto a wire rack to cool down. Once they have cooled you can either spread or pipe your buttercream on top. I forgot to take a photo but I'll also admit presentation isn't my forte either but they tasted good and went down a treat with my family which is all that counts!

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Patisserie Valerie

Afternoon tea for four (3)

For Danielle's birthday we got her afternoon tea at Patisserie Valerie as they had an offer on Groupon for £25 for 2 people. It was something different than the usual gifts we would get each other. (Yes her birthday was in July).

Kelly unfortunately couldn't make it as she's living in London but we had her fair share of the food.

It was the first time I'd been to Patisserie Valerie, I have had the macarons that Gabby got me for my birthday a couple of years ago. Sadly it wasn't a good one. 

We walked in & was told there was a 30 minute wait for a table. Told if we wanted afternoon tea it would be an hour wait or anything from the kitchen would take a while but drinks & cakes from the counter would be quick. People were asking if they could book & come back later, the guy said they weren't taking any bookings & that you would just have to wait. There's nothing he can do. The place was full & there just wasn't enough staff to go around which was why the service was so slow.

 It turned out to be a 15 minute wait which was ok. We were seated at a table that hadn't been wiped or cleared & got no service. There's a 15 minute rule of if no-one comes to you, you can go up to complain luckily for them the girl came at exactly 15 minutes from when we sat down. (Hannah was keen to time them). Took out drinks order & food.

Cappuccino 

An eyelash on my milk jug when things were already awful. 

Our tower came around 30 minutes after we seated.

Savoury

Cucumber on white bread

Smoked salmon & cream cheese on brown bread

Egg mayonnaise & cress on brown bread

Ham, spinach & mustard on white bread

Chicken, pesto & sunblazed tomatoes on brown bread

Mini vegetable quiche

Patisserie

1 x mini Victoria sandwich

2 x mini chocolate eclairs

1 mini carrot & walnut cake slice

1 x mini mixed berry mouse slice

1 x mini chocolate mousse slice

Scones

2 x fruit scone

2 x plain scone

Strawberry, apricot & blackcurrant jam, clotted cream & butter

Savoury food were fine apart from the ham mustard sandwich we didn't like them. Found it really weird that you only got 2 slice of each of the cakes between 2 people. The tiniest slices you could eat in one mouthful so not much to share between two. But yet you go 2 chocolate eclairs? Luckily for Danielle & Hannah I don't like them. 

I've turned into a scone after that think I had 4 scones or at least 3/8 of them. Effort in the gym this morning has gone...

Wasn't a great experience at all really disappointed, would not recommend or go again. Service was awful they just can't handle the afternoon tea when it was busy before they even started doing it. The idea of not taking bookings for afternoon tea clearly doesn't work. They really need to have a think over how they are running the shop. I'm sure I could do better!

Hopefully the service does improve & if you plan on going it's a lot better than it was for us today! If you're looking for somewhere to have afternoon tea in Liverpool I would recommend Cuthbert's which I have been to 3x & have blogged about them. Just search Cuthbert's or afternoon tea in the search bar down the side of the page.

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