CARROT CAKE REVIEW 22 - Two Unforgivable Sins In One Cake

Wells next the Sea, North Norfolk.

One family appear to run a large part of the shops in Wells. This bakery has been there for decades and is a very traditional bakery that knows its market. To my taste buds their cakes and pastries tend to be seriously over iced and are prone to prioritise size over taste. So a sweet pastry will be absolutely huge, but with sugar drowning out the strengths of any other flavourings.  Bigger is rarely ever better. On a day in the middle of lockdown when no cafes are open and only one bakery that coincidentally also serves coffee, and this was it. I thought 'go on give their carrot cake a whirl', broaden your case portfolio.

The coffee was just a coffee, straightforwardly generic, nothing fancy. Though it too tasted sweet, probably due to dropping one of those small catering condensed cream pods into it. We also bought and ate a very tasty savoury Spinach & Feta Pasty. The carrot cake came in a cellophane fronted paper bag that had adhered to it, and was actively suffocating the buttercream icing by the time we'd walked to the beach. Any decorative texture constructed by a pallet knife was effectively squished like a cow pat. It was, after all, only a traybake, and regular readers know what I feel about those. I refer you to the Golden Rule of Carrot Cake No 6 - a traybake is not a carrot cake.  It is then one of the most unforgivable sin for a carrot cake to transgress. But I had already adjusted my expectations accordingly, in a generally downward direction.

Externally it looked like a substantial slab of cake. In my hand it bore a bit of weight, if hurled with  intensity it might prove a little alarming, but would not bruise. It bore a light tan colour that's rarely a good sign. Already my antenna was spitting suspiciously to life - spice cake or walnut cake? either way this would be the second unforgivable sin! The Golden Rule of Carrot Cake No 1 - a spice cake is not a carrot cake. There was indeed at least 'a carrot' in it because you could spot little squares of orange colour floating across the beigeness of its palid flanks. Would it actually taste of any though?

The human palette cannot lie. A suggestion of carrot texture maybe, a homeopathic hint of carrot flavour, quite a bit of sugar, with apparently a wheelbarrow load of spice thrown in. There it was, the great cake offence, slapping me not just in the face but in my stomach juices. The buttercream did appear an unhealthy jaundiced yellow to me too, sitting as it did on top of the cake like cement mortar. A walnut brain rested in the middle, the only notifiable nut present, with not even a moist sniffter of sultanas. The buttercream tasted over sweet and over greasy. The bottom of the traybake felt wet and undercooked when handled. Hubby 'The Demon Cake Professional'  informs me these are both signs it wasn't fully cooled before the buttercream was slapped on. But then this was a local bakery, and it is only a traybake, so cut them a bit of slack Vidyavajra. What else does a carrot cake reviewer down on his luck and opportunity during a pandemic have to do?

Apart from eat a carrot cake that's really a traybaked spice cake. Oh the sacrifices and compromises I'm being forced to make. All for you, all for the benefit of you, dear reader.


CARROT CAKE SCORE 3/8