Moist and tender homemade carrot cake packed with spices and filled with delicious, airy cream cheese mousse is a great idea any other time of the year, it is certainly a must make for Easter as well as over the Fall.
With an Electric hand mixer whip together room temperature egg, oil, granulated sugar, and brown sugar for a minute or two
Sift dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices, salt) and fold into wet ingredients, then fold in shredded carrot and chopped nuts with the help of a Rubber spatula
Pour cake batter into the prepared cake pans. Make sure they weight equal, use a digital scale
Bake for 20 min or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean
Once cakes are cooled, trim 1-2cm / 0.4-0.8 inches off around the edges on one of them, keep the other one as it is. Pop them into the freezer for 5-10 minutes before assembling the cake
Cream cheese mousse
Soak gelatin sheets into cold water
Heat cream (the first cream that is 120g) with sugar on low medium heat until just simmering
Squeeze excess water from the gelatin sheets and stir them into the hot cream, then mix in the lemon juice. Let the mixture cool to room temperature. Do not place it into the fridge as gelatin tends to form lumps if cools to quickly
In another bowl whip cream cheese with an Electric hand mixer for a few minutes until light and fluffy, then fold in room temperature (not warm) gelatin mixture with the help of a Rubber spatula
Whip heavy cream until soft peaks and very gently, using a Rubber spatula fold into the cream cheese mixture. It must stay light and fluffy
For a neat looking, smooth side surface use Acetate cake collar within the mousse ring
Start to build up the cake from bottom to top
Place the larger, 18 cm / 7 inch diameter sponge into the mousse ring, then with the help of a Piping bag pipe approx. 2cm cream cheese mousse on top. Pop it into the freezer for 5 minutes
Place the smaller carrot cake sponge on top, then pipe cream cheese mousse around and also another 2cm on top and smooth the top of the cream with an Offset spatula. Make sure you leave some mousse for later to decorate the cake
Place the cake and the leftover mousse into the fridge to set for a minimum of 4 hours
Once the cake is fully set, carefully remove the mousse ring and cake collar
Take a Piping bag with French star nozzle tip and pipe decoration on top of the cake then dust with some pumpkin spice or cinnamon