Kevin and Katie The Aldi Carrots Cake Recipe

Dec 4

Dec 4 Kevin and Katie The Aldi Carrots Cake Recipe

Hello my lovelies! This week, I found myself in a bit of a funk, in need of some major cheering up so I landed on a Kevin and Katie the carrots from Aldi cake this week cos well, it just makes me feel all warm and cosy inside. I know, I know, they’re just carrots but look at their wee faces! A pair of absolute cuties if ever I saw one. Sadly, I did not get to Aldi in time to buy a pair for myself, so I settled on caking them instead. Couldn’t bear to eat them after though so the toppers are still in my kitchen as I write this.

In all honesty, I’m a sucker for all Christmas adverts, I still gush over the John Lewis penguins from a few years ago. It’s reeeaal love! And this year’s Moz the monster, I can’t even, cuteness overload! Well, except the shape of his nose, eh, did that really not remind anyone in the design team of something a tad more questionable than a nose?? Someone’s definitely getting the sack. All that uproar over M&S whispering ‘thank you’ and no ones talking about a monster with a crotch on it’s face? Check your priorities people.

This week was a pretty busy one because my sisters coming to visit! Whoop whoop! Instead of devising a new recipe I outsourced to the Bake Off (where else?!). Remember Benjamina? Well, not only is she a wee cracker she also has an amazing Earl Grey, cake recipe. I love the flavour of Earl Grey tea and after all the rich spices these last two weeks I thought it would be a nice, refreshing change. And man wasn’t it just! The cake was so light and fluffy, had an amazing rise and just the right floral aroma of my favourite tea. This one is definitely a keeper. I’ll be whipping it out on the regular I think.

What You'll Need

1 sponge cake (I used this recipe)

3 cups frosting (1 part butter:2 parts icing sugar:splash of lemon juice)

2 tbsp honey

Earl grey tea

2 rice krispie treats

500g fondant

1 barbeque skewer

60cm of food safe wire

Food colouring – orange, pink, blue, green, black

Splash of vodka

Method

Mix the cake batter and split evenly between two, 6-inch cake pans. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180C/160C fan for 45-50 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. While the cakes are still warm, leave them in the pan and poke all over with a skewer.

Soak an Early Grey tea bag in 2 tbsp of boiling water and 2tbsp honey. Spoon this evenly over both cakes and leave them to cool. When cool, cut each into two layers, wrap in cling film and place in the freezer.

Slightly knead and soften one of the rice krispie treats. When its soft enough, mould into a carrot shape. Bend in half and insert half of a barbeque skewer into the thicker end. Shape the thinner end as if the carrot is sitting on a ledge. Place on a lined baking tray and prop up the raised end with pieces of crumpled up tin foil. This is really important, I didn’t make Kevin secure enough so now you can see he’s looking a little flatter than Katie. Repeat so you have two carrots and place in the fridge to set.

Cut the wire into 10 equal pieces. Colour a piece of fondant (the size of a golf ball) green. Tear off two small pieces and roll each into a sausage, about 3cm long. Press in a piece of cut wire, length ways and pinch the fondant to cover it. Use a rolling pin to flatten the fondant and carefully cut into a leaf shape. Use the blunt edge of a knife to score in veins. Mix a drop of vodka with green food colouring and paint into the veins. Repeat until you have two leaves and leave overnight to dry.

Colour a small piece of fondant flesh coloured and use this to cover the remaining pieces of wire. Leave a section of wire exposed each time, about 1-2 cm long. When covered, bend the wires slightly to look like arms and legs. Place all the limbs on a piece of parchment paper and leave to dry overnight.

Let’s move now to Katie’s bow. Colour a tiny piece of fondant pink, roll out and cut into a bow shape. Roll a little ball the same size as the centre of the bow, attach it here with a little vodka. Leave to dry on a piece of parchment paper.

The following day, remove the cakes from the freezer 2-3 hours before you plan to decorate. When you’re ready, attach the first to a cake plate/board with a small smear of frosting. Layer the remaining cakes on top with a spreading of frosting in between each. Cover the entire cake in a thin layer of frosting to pick up the crumbs. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

While that’s chilling, colour the remaining frosting blue and ½ of the remaining fondant orange.

Remove the cake from the fridge and coat the entire outside in a thin layer of blue frosting. Using the back of a spoon, paint on some neat blue food colouring to create more depth. Smooth the sides and the top.

Roll out the remaining white fondant to 2mm and cut out a rounded hill. Place this on to the front of the cake. Use the remaining green fondant from yesterday to cut out three Christmas trees, one large and two small. Use the green, vodka paint you made earlier to brush on branches. Attach the trees to the front of the snowy hill with a little brush of vodka.

Going back to the rice krispie carrots, remove from the fridge and cover in orange fondant. Use the blunt edge of a knife to score in little lines, like the ones you get in a real carrot. Carefully add the carrots to the top of the cake, pushing the skewers into the sponge. Be really careful here, the first time I did this, I hit a weird angle and the skewer came out the front. Total nightmare!

For their adorable wee faces, press in little dents for the eyes and mouth and carefully fill with tiny drops of black fondant. Remember Katie has eyelashes and eyebrows too. Lastly, Katie has some pink lippy on, so fill that the same way.

Kevin’s scarf is a little more time consuming. Start off by colouring a little fondant dark blue, pale blue, pale green and brown. When coloured, roll these out and cut into little strips. Roll out a long, thin strip of white fondant, long enough to wrap around Kevin’s neck 1 ½ times. Coat the white strip in a little vodka and place the coloured tiles you cut earlier on top, pressing slightly to make sure they stick. When the white is totally covered, gently roll a rolling pin over the top a few times. Straighten all edges with a knife, removing the excess. Brush a little vodka round Kevin’s neck and place his scarf around.

Finally, for the finishing touches, push in the leaf toppers and limbs. Be really gentle here, keep one finger over the top of the wire to stop it shooting through the other end instead of pushing into the carrots. If you look closely, you’ll see that Kevin is actually missing an arm because I forgot to be careful and the wire came shooting out, crumbling his right arm into nothing. Sorry Kev! Only thing left now is Katie’s bow, roll up a small piece of fondant and use this to glue the bow onto the front of her leaves.