And the Winner of the Ultimate Bake-Off is...

Drum roll please! Having baked both Mary Berry's very best chocolate and orange cake and Paul Hollywood's ultimate carrot cake, the verdict's in. The cakes have been ‘deliberated, cogitated and digested’ by a select panel of experts...which didn't include Lloyd Grossman as it happens and a decision has been reached.

The winner of Delicious Magazine's 'Ultimate Bake-Off' is...

Paul Hollywood's Ultimate Carrot Cake

Check out the cakes on my first Ultimate Bake-Off post here. So what did the taste testers have to say?

Well the votes were 8 for the carrot cake and 3 for the chocolate cake, so the carrot was a clear winner. Blog voters you went for chocolate, 4 to 3!

Most of the taste testers liked the chunky pecans in the carrot cake, although one said it put them off. The main selling point of the carrot was the interesting textures, it was also moist and full of different flavours. Most but not all were also partial to the cream chesse frosting!

For the chocolate cake, it was seen as a good all round cake with a faint taste of orange. The frosting was described as finger-licking good and the taste tester also felt that it wasn't over rich.

Overall, everybody enjoyed both and it was a tough call...it was actually closer than the votes suggest. My personal favourite was the carrot...mainly because I didn't try the chocolate as I don't eat it...so there was really only ever going to be one winner! I would say however, that it's rather difficult to compare carrot and chocolate cake, it is also down to people's personal tastes.

Fancy making the carrot cake yourself, here's the recipe! After all two tasters even said it was the best carrot cake they'd ever tasted!

155ml sunflower oil,
230g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp ground ginger
230g light brown muscovado sugar
1 satsuma - zest finely grated
100g pecans, halved
260g carrots, grated
3 medium eggs, beaten

For the icing

50g butter
200g full-fat cream cheese
150g icing sugar
2tsp orange juice

Heat your oven to 180c/160c fan/gas 4 and then grease and line the bottom of an 18cm round tin, preferable it should be loose-bottomed. It really is an easy recipe, place the baking powder, flour (sifted), cinnamon, ginger and mixed spice in a bowl before adding the sugar, zest, grated carrots and pecans. Mix until combined and then add in the eggs, which should be beaten first, and the oil.

Once it is all well combined pour it into the tin and bake for 1 hour. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes before cooling on a rack. For the icing, put the butter in a bowl and beat it with a mixer and then add the cream cheese and mix. Finally add the icing sugar and orange juice and beat until smooth.

The suggested icing method is to use a piping bag and pipe lines back and forth before scattering with satsuma zest. Alternatively, if you'd prefer not to pipe just apply in the usual way. You might also want to consider making double and splitting your cake in two and filling it as well, to make it double delicious!!!

* Adapted from the March 2012 edition of Delicious Magazine.

The Ultimate Bake-Off

Cue the Rocky music, cue the movie voice-over guy...this is the 'Ultimate Bake-Off'. It's a clash of the titans, Mary Berry versus Paul Hollywood.

This month Delicious magazine has challenged these two star bakers to submit their ultimate cake recipe, readers must then make both cakes and host a tasting session. We have Mary's very best chocolate and orange cake versus Paul's ultimate carrot cake.

Once taste tested the results will be reported back to Delicious magazine to help determine the winner of the 'Ultimate Bake-Off' and the nation's favourite cake!

First up is Mary's chocolate cake. This was made using the all-in-one method and the chocolately taste comes from cocoa powder. The orange mentioned in the title comes from the zest of one orange. The cooked sponges were then brushed with apricot jam before spreading over the ganache, made as specified using Bourneville! Finally, for the curls on top, melted chocolate was spread on a baking tray and cooled, before being scraped off with a sharp knife... I wouldn't recommend using your best baking sheet for this!! :-o

Next up, Paul's carrot cake cake made with sunflower oil, copious amounts of carrots and light brown muscavado sugar. It also has halved pecans in it. This was easy to make, just mix it all in! The frosting is cream cheese frosting with a little butter, cream cheese and icing sugar, as well as 2 teaspoons of orange juice. It was then piped on the top in an unusual line pattern, before sprinkling with strips of orange zest. 

Both cakes were easy to make and they look delicious but there can only be one winner!

If you'd like to join in then please leave a comment and let me know which cake you would choose and why and I'll take your opinion into account when deciding on the ultimate cake! Why not vote in my current poll too on the top right of this page.

Once the cakes have been tasted I'll post the results!