Carrot Cake is a traditional cake served in Switzerland, specifically in the canton Aargau. With a icing sugar glaze the cake traditionally comes in orange and white and is a hit for any party. This time, I adapted this Swiss classic recipe to create little Valentine’s Day carrot cake treat – with a white and orange graffiti icing sugar twist.

I created this recipe as part of a Swiss food discovery project with other food bloggers from all language areas in Switzerland. You can find links to the other bloggers and further Swiss recipe’s on the Silvie’s Blog Citronelle and Cardamome.

For the heart shape you will need heart shaped silikon moulds (greased with a bit of melted butter). You can also use muffin moulds and use cupcake paper forms or use the batter to make one big, round carrot cake.

Ingredients (for 12 muffins / heart shaped moulds or 1 round carrot cake (24 cm diameter)

Cake:
55g butter (room temperature)
210g carrots (finely grated)
200 almond (grated almonds / almond flour)
80g flour
200g sugar
1 packet of vanilla sugar
5 egg yolks
5 egg whites (stiff)
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
Zest of half a lemon
1 tablespoon of lemon juice

Icing:
250g icing sugar
5-6 tablespoons of lemon juice
Orange food coloring (liquid or paste)

Preparation:

Cake:
Whisk the butter and the egg yolks in a bowl until the mixture is light and foamy. Add the sugar and continue stirring.
Add the carrots and lemon juice. Add almonds, flour, baking powder, lemon cest and cinnamon, mix until a smooth dough is created. Fold the egg whites in. Pour the dough into the moulds.
Tip: If you use silikon moulds, grease them with a bit of melted butter before pouring in the dough. If you use muffin moulds, line them with paper cupcake moulds. If you make a cake, use a springform pan, line the bottom with baking paper and grease the sides with melted butter.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Bake for 25 minutes. If you make one big cake, the baking time has to be adjusted accordingly, bake the cake for 50-55 minute. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
Tip: If you use silikon moulds, let the cakes cool completely before popping them out.

Icing:
While the cakes are cooling, mix the icing sugar with the lemon juice. In a separate bowl, mix 2 tablespoons of the icing with orange food coloring. Once the cakes are cooled, place them on a rack and pour the white icing over the cakes. If you used paper cupcake forms, just spread a bit of white icing on top of the muffins. Let the cakes with the white icing cool for a couple of minutes.
For the orange icing decoration, take a brush, dip it into your orange colored icing and sprinkle it onto one side of the heart (it is no precise technique, just have fun with it!).
For the muffins you can also just randomly sprinkle on your colored icing
Let everything cool for another 45-60 minutes so that your icing can harden
– and enjoy!