The Italians make carrot cake differently. No frosting. More flavor. The whole thing feels lighter somehow, more honest — the carrot actually tastes like carrot, and the orange comes through rather than getting buried under cream cheese.
This version uses Tarocco orange marmalade in two ways: stirred into the batter, where it gives the cake a floral tartness and keeps it genuinely moist, and spooned over the top as a 'glaze' while still warm, where it sets into something bright and deeply flavoured.
This is a one bowl cake, it comes together quickly. I'm sure you'll find yourself making it often.
Carrot cake the colour of a Sicilian afternoon.
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons Tutto Sicilia Sicily Orange Marmalade
- 250g carrots, grated
- 200g all purpose flour
- 180g cane sugar
- 3 eggs
- 150ml melted butter or Tutto Sicilia Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- Pinch of Salt
- 2 more tablespoons of Tutto Sicilia Sicily Orange Marmalade at the end
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and line a 8" round tin or bundt pan.
- Whisk eggs and sugar together until pale. Add melted butter or olive oil and whisk again.
- Stir in marmalade and orange zest.
- Add flour, baking powder, bicarbonate, cinnamon, and salt. Fold to combine.
- Fold in grated carrots.
- Pour into prepared tin and bake for 35–40 minutes until a skewer comes out clean, make sure to check it at 25 minutes. All ovens bake slightly different.
- While still warm, spread remaining marmalade over the top. It will warm and melt into the cake cools.
- Serve at room temperature. Even better the next day.
Nonna's Notes
The kitchen was never empty in the afternoon. Something was always resting on the counter, just in case.
Sometimes she added raisins, sometimes walnuts or almonds. You can too, go by how it feels.
The colour, when it comes out of the oven, is the colour of a Sicilian afternoon. That deep golden orange you see in old photographs of the island — warm, saturated, slightly unreal.
Make it on a Sunday. Eat it all week. It gets better after the first day.
This is the cake that makes people ask what's in it. The marmalade is in it — twice.
→ Shop Sicily Orange Marmalade
This is the cake that makes people ask what's in it. The marmalade is in it — twice.
