Wednesday of this week was my mum’s birthday – hopefully she won’t mind me telling you she’s trying to eat healthily in preparation for my brother’s wedding in 7 weeks time – in New Zealand! More to follow on that I’m sure…
Birthdays are the one day when diets don’t count, and cake is a must. But I made a low-fat one so she could eat more of it 
I used Delia’s Saturday Carrot Cake recipe, it was incredibly simple to follow and I love that it can be made all in one bowl, basically just beating everything together. Before you go think it’ll be a good way to five-a-day – the whole cake only took up 2 small carrots! I have the rest of the pack still in the bottom of the fridge, waiting for an urge or healthiness to be eaten. It’s not happened yet. I don’t hold out much hope.
With an absence a suitable sized round tin (seriously, I need to go shopping!), I clapped eyes on my silicon star moulds which are just brilliant for birthday cakes. I’m still not sure, however, how Delia manages to fill a whole loaf tin with hers!
Once baked and cooled I simply topped with cream cheese icing – you may recognise it from this weeks Valentine’s Ombre cake. As I was making two cakes I made a big batch, using extra-light cream cheese and low-fat spread to make it as healthy as possible. Into this I pressed some more walnut pieces, all around the edge of the star.
Who doesn’t love a personalised birthday cake – my piping was a little shaky however, it was done slightly on the run, coming in from work, mixing up the icing, piping, and heading out the door again, all in the space of 5 minutes!
Even with the shaky icing and dodgy “Happy Birthday” singing mum still seemed very happy – although maybe that was the wine we shared over dinner! The cake was a great dessert, crunchy, tangy base with a sweet, squidgy icing. Happy Birthday Mum! x
This keeps happening to me. I talk to someone or say something and then when I look at one of my fav blogs they are talking about the exact same thing! Freaky! Carrots in this case. We just this minute finished dinner and hubby and both daughters are mad on grated carrot in a salad. It was a topic of conversation ( I know the evenings must just fly by in our house, eh?) I’m not so sure about grating them, I like to crunch on them whole, but when it comes to carrot cake I’ve always got room.
Lucky mum.
Haha that’s hilarious! And a bit freaky too. Grated I like, crunchy I don’t really. Maybe I’ll use them up in some carrot mash to go with dinner one night? Or more cake. More cake is always a good fallback! x
Cake is definitely allowed on birthdays – but lovely that you made the effort to make it a little more diet friendly!
I don’t mind you sharing that Jen. The cake was delicious. Not too sure about the singing though!
The professional sat next to you was supposed to chime in. I blame the backing singers!!
This looks so delicious!