Sometimes the thought of combining two amazing meals horrifies me. Why would we want to risk creating Frankenstein’s monster when the original is so damn good. But, if people never tried something new, we’d be stuck without the wheel or electricity, so I understand the excitement.

Back in March a friend sent me a video of a combination of carrot cake and cheesecake, and I put it on my “list”. You know. The list of things I want to make, the one where priority of what to make changes on a daily basis and things can be on it for years before I actually make them.

Anyway, this experiment was pushed to the top of the list when carrot cake was requested for a colleague’s birthday. This colleague is the beautiful hand model in some of the photos throughout this post. I asked if I could try the carrot cake cheesecake idea, if she was willing to accept it as a birthday cake. She was, so I gave it a whirl.

I also realised that my food processor is the best thing to make cakes in, and I should have realised earlier. My food processor has a bread kneading attachment, so it mixes things together rather than chopping things up and turning it to a paste. I can make everything in this thing, and only have to clean up one “bowl” instead of 2 or 3. It even saves me from the nightmare of flying icing sugar when making frosting. I mean really, why didn’t I think of this before?! Of course, if you don’t have a food processor, then beat and mixing my hand/electric whisk is perfect and will not make a lesser cake.

I decided to try this cake in my Bundt tin, rather than a traditional cheesecake spring-form, to give it a bit of a fun shape (but also because I wanted to see how the layer of different cake reacted in the oven). Feel free to use a regular cake pan, if you don’t have a Bundt tin. Anyway, let’s get to it.

Ingredients

For the carrot cake:
2 medium carrots, grated
60 ml milk
2 eggs
80 g melted butter
150 grams soft brown sugar
180 grams plain flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

For the cheesecake:
150 grams caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp plain flour
450 grams cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
120 grams sour cream

Cream cheese frosting recipe (click here)

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C.
2. Blitz the carrot cake ingredients together in your food processor, using the bread kneading tool. If you don’t have a food processor, mix together all of the ingredients, except the carrots. Once well combined, stir in the grated carrots. Set aside.
3. Whisk/blitz all of the cheesecake ingredients together.
4. In a well-oiled and lightly floured Bundt or spring-form tin, add each batter as you wish.
5. Bake in the oven for 75 – 80 minutes in a Bundt tin, 45 – 50 minutes in a springform.
6. Remove from the oven when a skewer comes out clean, and allow to cool.
7. Make the frosting. Once cake is cool, decorate as you like. Have fun with it!