Designed for The Queen's Platinum Jubilee and taking inspiration from a traditional Bakewell Tart, this strawberry and basil frangipane tart is topped with a field of strawberries cut into roses, the national flower of England!
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Cutesy Carrot Cake
CREATIVE.
CARROT.
CAKE
CREATIVE.CARROT.CAKE
- Gluten-Free!
- Vegan!
This is an affiliate post in association with Creative Nature!
Pop by www.creativenaturesuperfoods.co.uk for nut-free, gluten-free and vegan snacks and baking supplies and use the discount code TOOFARFLETCHED10 for 10% off your order!
Creating a cute cake doesn’t need to be complicated! Whether you’re baking a cake from scratch, or streamlining the process using a cake mix, there are a few really simple tricks you can use to amp up the style and take it from an everyday sponge to something with a bit more character!
In this guide, we will be using Creative Nature’s Carrot Cake Kit and running with the “nature” theme, adding candied carrot and orange peel alongside cute fondant critters desperate for a bite of your creation!
Kitted out!
If you're a fair-weather baker, chances are you've picked up a baking kit or two in the past! While it can be great fun to create a cake from scratch, sometimes you really need a quick, easy and reliable solution for your tea party, promotion celebration or urgent cake craving!
Creative Nature have upped the game though, as not only do their kits tick all of these boxes, but they are also nut-free, gluten-free and completely vegan, which means pretty much everybody can tuck in to your creation! In addition to the Carrot Cake I've opted for, they also have quite a selection of flavours and bakes to try, including Cocoa Rich Chocolate Cake, a Pancake and Waffle Mix and, if you never jumped on the 2020 trend, a Banana Bread mix!
They also offer baking bundles of these bad boys; an ideal gift for the vegan or gluten-free baker in your life! I particularly like the Baker's Bundle, which includes not only a selection of baking kits, but gluten-free flour and diary-free cocoa powder, which is handy for newbie or experienced baker's alike! I also love the idea of the Birthday Bundle, which includes everything you need to create an allergen-free birthday cake for a lucky recipient, or you can gift the whole box to the birthday bearer so that they can enjoy a birthday baking sesh!
To check out the baking supplies, gift bundles and snacks on offer, head on over to www.creativenaturesuperfoods.co.uk and use the code TOOFARFLETCHED10 at checkout for your 10% discount!
A-peel-ing decor!
With your cake baked, you can crack on with transforming it from a regular carrot cake to a cute, crafty cake!
You'll often see loaf cakes decorated with a little candied peel and it's traditional for a good reason, it's very simple to do and uses the bare minimum of ingredients! In the recipe below, we'll be balancing the authentic with the unusual, creating not just the candied orange peel you know and (hopefully!) love, but also some candied carrot strips!
Candied Carrot and Orange Peel
Difficulty: EasyPrep time
30
minutesCooking time
15
minutesA quick and simple decoration for your fabulous carrot cake! Easy, striking and delicious, it's a classic for a reason!
Ingredients
1 carrot
1 large orange
300ml water (for boiling the orange peels)
300ml water (for creating the sugar syrup)
300g caster sugar
- To finish:
Around 15g caster sugar (to sprinkle on the finished peel!)
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 110C Fan
- Peel the carrots, then use the peeler to cut the carrots into ribbons. Using a sharp knife, divide and trim these ribbons down to the size you would like.
- Cut the orange into quarters, before peeling each quarter, using a knife to cut away the fruit if required.
- Using a sharp knife, cut the orange peel into strips of the desired length.
- Bring a large saucepan of around 300ml water to the boil, before adding the orange peel strips and boiling for 15 mins. Drain the water away, leaving your pan ready for candying your fruit/vegetables!
- Add the carrot ribbons to the saucepan with the sugar and remaining 300ml water and bring to the boil, boiling for around 10mins.
- Remove the ribbons from the pan and separate them out onto a lined baking tray. Bake in the oven for 15 mins.
- After the 15 mins are up, scatter each tray with a little extra caster sugar. Then switch off the oven but pop the peels back in there until you're ready to use them!
If you need to use your oven in the meantime, you can remove the trays from the oven, allow the candied peels to cool to room temperature, then store them in a airtight container instead!
Before you can start candying though, you need to do a little prep! The carrots are very simple to prepare; simply peel off and discard the outer skin as you normally would, then use your peeler to cut ribbons of carrot, ready to use! You can then use a sharp knife to trim these down to the size you want, depending on how you plan to use them!
The orange peel needs a tiny bit more prep, but it won’t take long! Use a sharp knife to cut the orange into quarters, then separate the peel away from the fruit.
You can then decide how thick you’d like the candied orange to be! If you’d prefer very thin strips, more in line with the carrot strips we created earlier, you can use a small serrated knife to cut away the white pith, then slice the peel into ribbons and set to one side, ready for adding to the sugar syrup!
Alternatively, to achieve the thicker orange slices I used in this cake, cut the peel into ribbons as usual, but leave the pith attached. Since the pith can be quite bitter, we then simply boil the slices in water for 15 mins, reducing their sharpness. You can then drain the water away and get yourself ready for some sweetification!
The left segment shows you the orange with pith removed, while the right segment has the pith attached for thicker candy slices!
Now it’s time to turn these healthy ingredients into some sweet, sweet candy! To kick this off, we first create a sugar syrup, which both softens and sweetens the peels as we boil them! This sugar syrup uses equal amounts of caster sugar and water and has been measured out to cover one carrot and one orange worth of peel. However, as long as you stick to this 1:1 ratio, you can adjust the amount of syrup you make as appropriate for the amount of candied peel you need!
Once you’ve boiled the peel for 10 minutes, you then want to dry them out gently in the oven for 15 minutes. This is the same concept as when making meringue; you’re not so much looking to cook the peel, but rather just dry it out, the combination of the heat and sugar drawing out any moisture from the peel and preventing it from being chewy. After the 15 minutes are up, you help finish this process off by sprinkling the peel with more sugar and placing it back in the (switched off) oven overnight or until ready to use. The added sugar draws out the last of the moisture and, by keeping them in the oven for as long as possible, you help prevent the moisture in the air from getting back into the peel after you’ve spent so much time getting it out!
Although we’ve gone for an orange theme here, you can apply the exact same process to a variety of other fruits and vegetables to create candied peels more appropriate for the cake you are making. You could opt for something traditional, such as lemon or lime, or push the boat out and try something completely different! I’m thinking of giving candied beetroot a shot, as I reckon the colour would make it pretty unique!
Crafting critters!
If you're the kind of person who gets bugged by fiddly fondant, then don't worry! These cute critters are the easiest thing in the world to put together, so you'll have them ready in two shakes of a worm's tail! Yes, that is now an expression I'm using!
Let me break it down insect-ions!
Little ladybirds!
To create your ladybird, you want to take a small blob of black fondant for the head, then take a piece of red fondant around twice the size of the black piece. Roll both pieces into balls, then cut each ball in half so that you end up with 2 red and 2 black hemispheres!
Place a red and a black hemisphere down on their flat edges and apply a little water to the black one in the area you wish to attach to the red fondant. Gently press the two pieces together to adhere them!
Using a knife, push down into the top of red fondant to create a line down the center of the ladybird’s body; these will be the wings!
Grab two tiny pieces of white fondant and roll them into balls. Apply a little water to them as adhesive, then stick them to the black head of your ladybird. Using black food colouring diluted in a little alcohol (vodka works a treat!), use a food-safe, fine-tipped paintbrush to paint small dots onto the back of the ladybird, then black pupils onto each white ball to create the eyes!
Repeat all of the above for the second pair of red and black hemispheres you have left over. It’s two for the piece of one!
Cute caterpillars!
The caterpillar is the easiest model to create so I'll keep this brief!
Firstly, you can use any colours you fancy for this, since you often see caterpillars in all kinds of funky patterns! In this tutorial though, I'll be using a more traditional green.
Secondly, you want to create 5 balls of equal size in the colour(s) you've chosen, alongside one slightly larger ball. This larger ball will be the head of your caterpillar, as it will give us a bit more space to add the eyes onto and will generally help give your little guy a bit more character!
Brush a little water onto each piece of fondant and gently push them together, using the water to stick them to each other. It could be quite nice to add a bit of a curve to your caterpillar by sticking the balls at slightly different angles to each other each time, rather than in one straight line, but you do you!
Roll out two small balls of white fondant for eyes and use the water to stick them to your critter’s head. Dilute a little black food colouring in a tiny bit of alcohol (as mentioned above, vodka works well, being clear), before applying it with a food-safe paintbrush to paint on a couple of pupils!
One very hungry caterpillar, ready to adorn your cake! Assuming it doesn’t eat it first!
I hope you have fun getting creative with your cake and that you give Creative Nature’s delicious treats a try!
If you’re social media savvy, feel free tag me on Instagram at @toofarfletched with your creations!
-Tom 
Comments
Tom
Hi! Thanks for stopping by!
I set up this site to share with you everything I love about baking, so hopefully there’ll be something here you enjoy too!
If you’d like to get in touch, feel free to use the links below!
I set up this site to share with you everything I love about baking, so hopefully there’ll be something here you enjoy too!
If you’d like to get in touch, feel free to use the links below!
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