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Vertical Layer Carrot Cake with vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream by Izy Hossack
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Vertical Layer Carrot Cake

A carrot cake, reinvented! Strips of fluffy carrot sponge are spread with a tangy creamy filling and rolled up like a giant cinnamon roll and iced with a vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream. The result is a vertically layered Swiss roll-style cake which is perfect for your Easter celebrations.
Course Cake
Keyword easter
Prep Time 50 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Additional Time 1 hour
Total Time 2 hours 5 minutes
Servings 8 servings
Author Izy

Ingredients

For the cake:

  • 6 eggs (medium if you're in the UK, large if you're in the US)
  • 330 g (1 1/2 cups) granulated sugar
  • 220 g (2 2/3 cups) finely grated carrot
  • 180 g (1 1/2 cups) plain white (all-purpose) flour
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • icing sugar (powdered sugar), for dusting

For the Swiss meringue buttercream:

  • 2 egg whites (medium if you're in the UK, large if you're in the US)
  • 110 g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar
  • 160 g (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, very soft, cubed
  • pinch of salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the filling:

  • 250 ml (1 cup) double cream (heavy cream)
  • 1/3 cup cream cheese

Instructions

For the cake:

  • Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan / 350°F). Line two 23 x 33 cm (9 x 13-inch) rimmed baking trays with baking paper. Grease underneath and on top of the baking paper with a bit of vegetable oil.
  • Place the eggs into a large bowl and use electric beaters to whisk, gradually streaming in the sugar a bit at a time, then continuing to whisk until foamy, pale and thick. You can also do this in a stand mixer with the whisk attachment.
  • Add the grated carrot, flour, cinnamon ,ginger, nutmeg, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Gently fold together until combined.
  • Divide the batter between the two prepared baking trays, spreading the batter out into an even layer over the whole tray.
  • Bake for 12-17 minutes until the cakes are dark on top and spring back when poked.
  • Remove the cakes from the oven, flip each one out onto a clean tea towel dusted with icing sugar (powdered sugar). Remove the baking paper, trim off the very edges of the cakes (a pair of scissors is good here. You can eat the scraps!) and dust the cake with more powdered sugar. Starting at the short edge, roll the cake up (along with the tea towel) into a tight log - it should look as though the tea towel is forming the filling of a Swiss roll cake, this stops the cake sticking together as it cools. Leave to cool completely.

Start on the Swiss meringue buttercream about an hour before you're ready to assemble the whole cake:

  • Place the egg whites and sugar in a large, heatproof bowl. Set over a small pan of simmering water, making sure the bottom of the bowl isn't touching the water, and stir often. We want the sugar to dissolve and the whole mixture to warm up. Keep stirring until the mixture measures 71°C (160°F) on a kitchen thermometer.
  • Remove the bowl from the heat and whisk until very thick, pale and completely cooled to room temperature (you can do this in a stand mixer with the whisk attachment or you can do this with handheld electric beaters).
  • Once completely cool you can start adding the butter. It's important you do this very gradually and that the butter is soft so that the mixture can emulsify properly.
  • With the mixer running on a medium speed, add the butter one or two cubes at a time, allowing them to become completely mixed in before adding a couple more butter cubes. Continue like this until all the butter has been added. It may look like the mixture is starting to curdle before you've added all the butter but this is normal, just keep whipping (see notes below for troubleshooting)
  • Mix in the salt and vanilla then set this SMBC aside at room temperature while you make the filling...

Make the filling:

  • Place the heavy cream in a large bowl. Whip with a whisk until the cream is starting to thicken - it should be fluffy but should still be able to plop off of a spoon (i.e. don't overwhip it! If it starts to separate because you've whisked it too much, you can stir a bit more double cream in and that should help bring it back).
  • Beat the cream cheese in a separate small bowl, to soften it up. Stir in a bit of the whipped cream to loosen, then add it all to the large bowl of whipped cream and stir through gently. Don't overmix.

Assemble (see grid of images above recipe to aid):

  • Carefully unroll your cooled cakes from their tea towels and re-roll. Cut each log in half so you have four logs about 4 inches long.
  • Unroll one of the logs very gently and spread 1/4 of the whipped cream over the surface of it. Re-roll the same way and stand the rolled log up like a tree trunk.
  • Unroll a second log of cake, spread on 1/4 of the whipped cream. Starting at the exposed edge of the 'tree trunk', wrap this second strip of cake around it.
  • Repeat with the next two cake logs so you end up with a very fat, short roll cake sat upright.
  • If your cakes crack/break in the process of doing this, don't worry about it. Just patch it back together with some filling and you really won't notice it!
  • Place onto a cake stand and frost the top with 1/3 of the SMBC using an offset spatula to smooth it out to the edges. Frost the sides with the remaining SMBC, smoothing out with an offset spatula.
  • Chill until ready to serve.

Notes

  • If the SMBC looks like it is curdling, place the bowl into the fridge to chill the butter for a few minutes. Remove from the fridge and whip again to re-emulsify.