Carrot cake with cream cheese ice cream and carrot sorbet

Preparation method

1. For the cream cheese ice cream, mix the sugar, glucose syrup and egg yolks together in a large bowl.

2. Bring the milk and cream to the boil in a large pan, and pour onto the sugar and yolk mixture.

3. Return to the pan, place the sugar thermometer into the mixture and reduce the heat to 84C/183F. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool, then whisk in the cream cheese. Blend the cream cheese mixture with the gelatine in a food processor until well combined. Set aside.

4. Churn the cream cheese mixture in an ice cream machine to a soft consistency. Transfer the ice cream to a plastic container and chill in the freezer.

5. For the carrot sorbet, cook the carrots and carrot juice in a pan for 10-15 minutes, or until the carrots are tender. Stir in the remaining ingredients and transfer the mixture to ice cream machine. Churn the sorbet to a soft consistency, transfer to plastic container and chill in the freezer.

6. For the carrot cake, preheat the oven to 160C/320F/Gas 2½. Grease and line a 30x10x5cm/12x4x2in cake tin.

   Technique: Greasing and lining cake tins

7. Sieve the ground ginger, wholemeal flour, bicarbonate of soda, ground nutmeg, salt, ground cinnamon and sugar into a bowl.

8. Whisk the eggs, sour cream and oil together in a large bowl. Stir in the sieved dry ingredients and chopped carrots until well combined.

9. Transfer the mixture to the cake tin and bake for 1-1¼ hours, or until golden-brown and springy springy to the touch. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

10. For the pulled carrots, peel the carrots until they are about 2cm/¾in long.

11. In a small pan, bring the sugar, carrot juice and glucose syrup to the boil to make a stock syrup.

12. Add the carrots to the pan and simmer gently for 10-15 minutes, or until the carrots are tender and the volume of the stock syrup has reduced by half. Allow the carrots to cool in the syrup.

13. Remove the carrots from the syrup and set aside to drain well paper towel. Stick a cocktail stick into the end of each carrot.

14. Heat the stock syrup until it is a pale caramel colour, then remove from the heat and set aside to cool a little.

15. Dip the carrots into the caramel until coated. Stick the carrots into some adhesive putty to allow any excess caramel to drain off. (NB: Place a baking tray or sheets of greaseproof paper underneath the carrots to catch any caramel that drips.)

16. For the tuile, melt the butter in a small pan, add the ready-made fondant icing and glucose syrup, and stir to combine.

17. Pour the mixture onto a baking sheet lined with greaseproof baking paper. Set aside to cool and set, then cut into rectangles.

18. To serve, slice the cake into 2-3cm/¾-1¼in slices, plus a few more small pieces to support the sorbet. Place a slice of cake onto each of four serving plates, with a scoop of the ice cream on top, followed by a tuile. Add a smaller piece of cake and scoop the sorbet on to this. Garnish with a pulled carrot.

Less than 30 mins preparation time

Over 2 hours cooking time

Serves 4