The Best Carrot Cake

Ingredients

• 75g cream cheese or cottage Cheese

  Cheese

  Add to eggs for omelettes, grate onto soups or salads.

  • Parmesan often goes rock hard or becomes horribly sweaty. Ideally, all cheese should be stored in a cool, airy place at a temperature of 46-50F/8-10C. However, most of us put it straight into the fridge. This is fine providing the cheese is kept loosely wrapped in its own airtight container so it isn’t tainted by other foods.
  • Store it in the salad drawer, which is not quite as cold as the rest of the fridge and use a micro plane for grating.
• ½ teaspoon Salt

  Salt

  Consider tablesalt, sea salt or crystals.

  Sea salt’s pronounced and salty flavour means less is required to season food.

• ½ tablespoon ground Cinnamon

  Cinnamon

  Great in buns, cakes, and puddings.

  • Add to baked apples or apple pies.
  • Break the stick and add to poaching syrup for fruits like pears, plums or bananas or use to infuse wine or punch.
• 125ml Sunflower oil

  Sunflower oil

  It is tasteless and heats to a high temperature so is a good all round oil.

  Ideal for pan-frying, mayonnaise, dressings and marinades.

• 175g icing Sugar and Syrups

  Sugar and Syrups

  Try having in stock caster sugar, muscavado, honey and golden syrup

  • Once opened ensure they are tightly resealed with quick clips or bag clips.
  • If you have got rock-hard brown sugar, crystallised honey/syrup, place in a suitable non-metallic bowl and give a quick blast of about 30 seconds on high in the microwave to bring these back to their normal state.
• 225g soft brown Sugar and Syrups

  Sugar and Syrups

  Try having in stock caster sugar, muscavado, honey and golden syrup

  • Once opened ensure they are tightly resealed with quick clips or bag clips.
  • If you have got rock-hard brown sugar, crystallised honey/syrup, place in a suitable non-metallic bowl and give a quick blast of about 30 seconds on high in the microwave to bring these back to their normal state.
• 75g walnuts, roughly chopped Dried fruits

  Dried fruits

  Sultanas, currents, and raisins are all dried grapes of different varieties.

  • They are a healthy snack on their own or with nuts. They also work well for fruitcakes and Christmas pudding, biscuits and buns.
  • When re-hydrated in water, tea or alcohol they can be added to mousses, fools and ice creams.
  • Their natural sweetness works well with Indian and North African recipes.
  • Keep the fruits fresher by resealing them with bag clips or transfer them to airtight containers.
• 4 Eggs

  Eggs

  Always have some on hand for quick scrambled egg.

  • Keep eggs in the fridge in their box and never eat them after their use-by date.
  • The Health Protection Agency recommends buying Lion branded eggs, which come from vaccinated hens and are therefore less likely to contain salmonella