In search of carrot cake perfection

One of the reasons for starting this blog is that every weekend I have time to kill whilst I’m waiting for my youngest daughter at stage school. I wanted to make sure I didn’t waste this time, because weekends are precious. I wanted to go explore, walk, visit, eat, enjoy – all the things that weekends are made for!

What that means is, without a shadow of a doubt, cafés are going to make a big appearance here! I think there’s nothing lovelier than sitting, watching the world go by over a nice cuppa. And relatively often, a nice piece of cake to go with it. But, I also do love to bake, so I’m quite picky when it comes to good cake. If there’s such a thing as a cake snob, I’m one of them.

So this weekend, I ventured into Leicester and decided upon ‘Hollys’. A lovely, small independent café near to St Martin’s square. To my delight, amongst the brownies and coconut squares on display, was a rarely spotted thing – a great looking carrot cake. As when it’s done well, carrot cake is the best, but all too often, I’m left with food envy when my carrot cake doesn’t quite hit the mark.

No such complaints this weekend though. Hollys delivered! A generous slice of moist, tasty cake, packed with juicy raisins and excellent cream-cheese icing. Served up with the cutest spotted tea-pot and nice, strong tea. Normally, getting that combination to work is no easy task; either the cake is dry, the icing is off balance, the tea is too weak. Not this weekend, top marks to team Holly! A very strong start in my search for carrot cake perfection! It scored a solid 8/10 for me and honestly, the only thing that let it down was the café clean up that was happening all around us, the team shutting up the shop ready to go home. It was 15:30 on a Saturday afternoon, and I know cafes open early for breakfast, but staying open a little while longer so that I could fully enjoy my pit stop would have made me happier. To truly enjoy my tea and cake is to truly enjoy my surroundings too.

So my search will go on. With every weekend up for grabs, I will continue my quest for tea and cake perfection. Not always carrot cake, because other than coffee and walnut (don’t even, it’s the devil’s food), there’s a whole world of tea and cake to enjoy. And so, if you know your carrots, and can make some good suggestions, I’m all ears… (and tummies).