Carrot cake with cream cheese mousse filling
Moist and tender homemade carrot cake packed with spices and filled with delicious, airy cream cheese mousse is a great idea any other time of the year, it is certainly a must make for Easter as well as over the Fall.
- Prep time
- 1 hr
- Cook time
- 1 hr
- Yield
- 8 servings
- Difficulty
- MEDIUM
Ingredients
Quantities are shown as originally provided.
- 160 g All purpose flour (sifted)
- ½ teaspoon Baking powder
- ½ teaspoon Baking soda
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- 2 teaspoon Pumpkin spice (or a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves)
- 100 g Granulated sugar
- 50 g Brown sugar
- 2 Eggs (room temperature)
- 160 g Vegetable oil
- 200 g Carrot (peeled and freshly shredded)
- 100 g Nuts (toasted & chopped walnut or pecans)
- 5 Gelatine sheet (1.7g gelatin / sheet)
- 120 g Heavy Cream
- 130 g Granulated sugar
- 10 g Lemon juice (freshly squeezed)
- 400 g Cream cheese (ex. Philadelphia full fat)
- 360 g Heavy Cream (36% fat, use it very cold)
- 1 tablespoon Vanilla bean paste
Instructions
- 1
Carrot cake
- 2
Heat oven to 180 C / 356°F
- 3
Prepare 2 x 18 cm / 7 inches pan with parchment paper or grease throughout
- 4
With an Electric hand mixer whip together room temperature egg, oil, granulated sugar, and brown sugar for a minute or two
- 5
Sift dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices, salt) and fold into wet ingredients, then fold in shredded carrot and chopped nuts with the help of a Rubber spatula
- 6
Pour cake batter into the prepared cake pans. Make sure they weight equal, use a digital scale
- 7
Bake for 20 min or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean
- 8
Cool them on Cooling rack
- 9
Once cakes are cooled, trim 1-2cm / 0.4-0.8 inches off around the edges on one of them, keep the other one as it is. Pop them into the freezer for 5-10 minutes before assembling the cake
- 10
Cream cheese mousse
- 11
Soak gelatin sheets into cold water
- 12
Heat cream (the first cream that is 120g) with sugar on low medium heat until just simmering
- 13
Squeeze excess water from the gelatin sheets and stir them into the hot cream, then mix in the lemon juice. Let the mixture cool to room temperature. Do not place it into the fridge as gelatin tends to form lumps if cools to quickly
- 14
In another bowl whip cream cheese with an Electric hand mixer for a few minutes until light and fluffy, then fold in room temperature (not warm) gelatin mixture with the help of a Rubber spatula
- 15
Whip heavy cream until soft peaks and very gently, using a Rubber spatula fold into the cream cheese mixture. It must stay light and fluffy
- 16
Assembling
- 17
Assemble the mousse ring and set it to 18 cm / 7 inch in diameter (Mousse cake ring (adjustable in size)) just as the size of the larger sponge
- 18
For a neat looking, smooth side surface use Acetate cake collar within the mousse ring
- 19
Start to build up the cake from bottom to top
- 20
Place the larger, 18 cm / 7 inch diameter sponge into the mousse ring, then with the help of a Piping bag pipe approx. 2cm cream cheese mousse on top. Pop it into the freezer for 5 minutes
- 21
Place the smaller carrot cake sponge on top, then pipe cream cheese mousse around and also another 2cm on top and smooth the top of the cream with an Offset spatula. Make sure you leave some mousse for later to decorate the cake
- 22
Place the cake and the leftover mousse into the fridge to set for a minimum of 4 hours
- 23
Once the cake is fully set, carefully remove the mousse ring and cake collar
- 24
Take a Piping bag with French star nozzle tip and pipe decoration on top of the cake then dust with some pumpkin spice or cinnamon
- 25
Store refrigerated for 2-3 days