Citrus Scented Carrot Cranberry Loaf Cake
This Citrus Scented Carrot Cranberry Loaf Cake is dotted with dried cranberries, grated carrots everywhere and has a subtle tanginess and fresh flavors from orange juice and zest.
Servings: 10 slices
Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cups All purpose Flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs at room temperature
- 2 carrots, peeled and grated about 2 cups
- 1 tablespoon orange zest see notes
- ¼ cup fresh orange juice
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon lime juice
- ¼ cup dried cranberries see notes
Instructions
- PLAN AHEAD - take the butter and eggs out of the refrigerator. Peel and grate the carrots.
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F or 175 degrees C. Prepare a loaf pan (I used 9 X 5) by greasing it with butter and sprinkling some flour over it. See Notes
- Set a sieve over a deep mixing bowl and sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. If you do not want to, skip the sifting and just whisk these ingredients together.
- In a separate bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer (like my Kitchenaid) fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together till light and creamy, about 1 minute on medium speed.
- To the sugar and butter mixture, add eggs, one at a time, and mix them in.
- Once the eggs, butter and sugar mixture is smooth and creamy, add in freshly squeezed orange juice, lime juice and vanilla and mix on low speed. Your mixture might look curdled but do not worry about it. It's OK - I promise!
- With the mixer running on very low speed, slowly add the dry ingredients and grated carrots. Stir until just combined. With help of a spatula, gently fold in the dried cranberries.
- Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and smooth out the surface with a spatula.
- Bake at 350/175 for 40-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the loaf comes out clean. The time might vary according to your oven. I would suggest that you start checking the middle of the loaf with a toothpick at the 40 minute mark.
- Take the loaf out of the oven and let cool for 10 minutes (Hah good luck with that!). Loosen the sides of the loaf cake with a knife and carefully remove loaf from pan. Let cool completely before slicing. Enjoy!!
Notes
Use the zested orange to squeeze fresh orange juice. 1 medium size orange will yield ¼ cup OJ.
If you cannot find dried cranberries where you live, you can use golden raisins or dried cherries too.
The wrapping paper of butter stick makes a good tool to spread butter in the loaf pan to grease it.