Italian Carrot Cake

INSTRUCTIONS

• 1
  Peel the carrots and grate them finely. Then prepare a bowl and a tall mixing container, get the eggs ready, and separate the yolks from the whites: Put the yolks in the bowl and the whites in the tall container.
• 2
  Next, line a round cake tin (⌀ 22 cm) with baking paper, preheat the oven to 170 °C, and prepare the batter: Add 90 g of brown sugar to the yolks in the bowl and whisk this mixture with a hand mixer until it becomes frothy and doubles in volume. Add the grated carrots and ground almonds to the whipped mixture, sift in the spelt flour, baking powder, and a pinch of salt, and mix the entire contents of the bowl thoroughly to form a denser batter. Then prepare a hand blender with a whisk attachment, whip the egg whites in the tall container until almost stiff (this takes about 2 minutes), then add 30 g of brown sugar and continue whisking until a firm, stiff meringue forms. Take about ¼ of the whipped meringue and gently fold it into the carrot batter in the bowl to lighten it. Then carefully fold the remaining meringue into the bowl.
• 3
  Pour the finished batter into the lined tin and bake for 55–60 minutes at 165–170 °C.
• 4
  After baking, remove the cake from the oven and let it cool in the tin for about 1 hour.
• 5
  In the meantime, prepare the cream: In a deeper bowl, whisk together the cream cheese, honey, and quark.
• 6
  Once the cake has cooled, spread it with the prepared cream. Then cut the cake into 10 portions and serve.