Traditional Swiss Carrot Cake (Rüblikuchen)

A traditional Swiss Recipe. Rüblikuchen is a carrot cake made with hazelnut and topped with a sugar lemon glaze.

Course Cake, Dessert

Cuisine swiss

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 35

Total Time 30

Servings slices

Calories 349kcal

Equipment

1 24 cm or 9" cake tin /spring form

Ingredients

250 g carrots 8.8 oz
6 eggs medium size, at room temperature
50 ml milk 1.6 fl oz
1 pinch salt
150 g butter 5.2 oz unsalted
150 g sugar 5.2 oz
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 tsp grated lemon peel
2 teaspoon baking powder
175 gr flour 6.1 oz, Germany type 405, UK plain flour, USA pastry flour
100 g ground hazelnut 3.5 oz

For the marzipan carrots

80 g marzipan 2.8 oz
2 drops orange food colouring You can also mix yellow and red food colouring to mix the orange colour. You will need more yellow than red.
1 drops green food colouring

For the glaze

200 g icing/confectioners sugar 7 oz
100 g apricot jam 3.5 oz
lemon juice of one lemon

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Line the base of your spring form with baking parchment. Grease the sides with butter and dust with a little flour.
Preheat your oven to 190°C or 374°F top to bottom heat.
Peel the carrots, discard of the ends and finely grate them.
Separate the eggs into egg white and yolks.
Add the egg whites into a bowl with the sugar and salt and whisk until stiff.
In a separate bowl whisk together the egg yolks, vanilla essence, milk and lemon peel. Melt the butter and carefully add it to the mixture.
Combine the flour and baking powder in a bowl and sieve them into the egg yolk mixture. Sieving the flour will add air into the dough and make the cake more fluffy. Thoroughly mix the cake dough.
Now add the hazelnuts and grated carrots and mix with a spatula until completely combined.
Carefully fold the stiff egg white into the cake batter. You do not want to mix too much as this point, as we do not want the egg whites to deflate again.
Pour or spread the cake batter in the form and bake for about 30-35 minutes. To check if the cake is done, prick a skewer into the middle. If it comes out clean it is done.
Leave the cake the cool down in its form for 10 minutes. Then carefully loosen the edges by running a knife around the cake. Let the cake cool upside down to ensure that the surface will be nice and flat.

Making the marzipan carrots

Divide the marzipan pan mass into two pieces. ⅓ of the marzipan you can knead with the green food colouring. Colour ⅔ orange.
To make the carrots, you carefully roll out the orange marzipan and cut out2 cm circles using the round piping tip. This will ensure that they are equal in size. Alternatively, you can form little balls and weigh each one separately. I made about 12 carrots. For each piece of cake one.
The starting shape for each carrot is a little round ball. You roll it then on the palm of your hand to a triangle. (see picture)
To make the carrot greens, take off a little bit of green roll it in a tiny ball. Then flatten it. With a knife cut out two triangles. Then attach the greens to the carrot.

Icing the cake

Slightly warm up the apricot jam, as it makes it easier to spread. Spread the apricot jam on the surface and sides of the cake. This will provide a barrier between the glaze and the cake, and add a lovely fruity note to the flavour.
Sieve the icing/confectioners powder into a bowl. Add a tablespoon of lemon juice and whisk until you achieve a thick glaze. If the glaze is too liquid, add more icing/confectioners sugar. If the glaze is too dry, add more lemon juice.
Finally place the marzipan carrots on the moist glaze and wait for the icing to set.

Notes

I recommend checking out the step by step images in the main post.

Store the carrot cake in the fridge, in an airtight container. This way it will remain lovely and moist.

This cake is also very suitable for freezing. This way it will stay good up to 6 months. However, for the best results, I would freeze the carrot cake in advance without the glaze, and then glaze it after being defrosted.

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