Switzerland’s most productive agricultural region, Canton Aargau, is known for its fruits, vegetables, and world-famous carrot cake. It is moist, tasty, and light, and the only additional fat is the natural fat found in the eggs.
| Prep Time: | 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 45 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 15 mins |
| Servings: | 12 |
| Yield: | 1 to 9 – inch round cake pan |
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- ¾ cup white sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons grated lemon zest
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 cup grated carrots
- 1 cup ground almonds
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 pinch salt
- ¾ cup confectioners’ sugar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
Instructions
- Prepare the 9 inch cake pan by rubbing the inside well with a drop of cooking oil and then scattering a little flour over it. Preheat oven to 360 degrees F (180 degrees C).
- Separate the eggs and beat the yolks into the sugar thoroughly. Add lemon juice and grated rind, carrots, almonds, flour, baking powder and salt. Mix well.
- Beat egg whites until stiff and fold into cake mixture. Pour batter into 9 inch cake pan.
- Bake at 360 degrees F (180 degrees C) for 45 minutes.
- This cake is often iced with 3/4 cup confectioners sugar into which is beaten 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Little marzipan carrots are the traditional decoration.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 192 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 26 g |
| Cholesterol | 47 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 5 g |
| Saturated Fat | 1 g |
| Sodium | 65 mg |
| Sugars | 21 g |
| Fat | 9 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
My Swiss husband joking asked for a Swiss carrot cake for his birthday – very different from the “American” version. This was it! Easy and delicious. Even my children asked for seconds. In fact, my husband has asked me to make it again – that never happens. Reminds him of his mom’s. Thank you.
This recipe makes a rather small cake, but it’s really, really delicious. It’s not overly sweet, and the lemon really brings out a more satisfying flavor than you’ll get out of a box mix. We ended up using cream cheese icing, and it was a match made in heaven. It lasts more than six months in the freezer, retaining a good texture and flavor when thawed. It’s a great cake to bake then freeze for an occasional snack if you’re the only one eating it.
This cake came out pretty bad. I thought the recope looks funny, only having a 1/4 cup flour. It came out like a carrot tart…not a carrot cake!
smells delicious, but yes it did turn out thin. may be due to my lack of experience in beating the egg whites. fyi for anyone else, the eggs should be room temp. & any tiny amount of yolk in the whites will mess things up. from what i read getting them stiff should take about 3 – 5 mins. and need to be folded in immediately. will rate tomorrow after tasting. good luck.
Very good cake and very esy to make. I am a beginner.
I’m from the Canton Aargau myself and I gotta say this is the real deal. In Swiss German we call it Aargauer Rueblitorte. It is true, we are very famous for the carrots we grow 🙂
Highly reccommended. Created cake as per receipe. Chose not to ice – just dusted with icing sugar. Found that it was sweet with a distinct carrot flavour and not too oily as traditional carrot cakes can be.
As advertised, moist, delicious and light! And obviously, one look at the recipe tells you this is not what we’re accustomed to calling carrot cake, so you do have to toss out those preconceived notions about carrot cake to rate this appropriately. I knew I wanted to use a glaze on it, so I took the advice of other reviewers and reduced the sugar to 1/2 cup. To be honest, if I was going glaze-less, this would not have been sweet enough for me, and the glaze proved to make it (almost) too sweet for my tastes. So! Next time, I’ll follow the cake recipe exactly, and maybe just dust with powdered sugar for effect. I liked the almonds, but I might try using ground walnuts next time instead – I think they’d go better (maybe preconceived notions of carrot cake, but it sounds like a good idea to me!). Thanks for sharing this unique and tasty recipe, Corwynn!
I liked this cake a lot. It is very different from the carrot cake I’m used to but it’s good. Had a nice crisp texture on the outside but was moist on the inside. I added a sprinkle of nutmeg, used 1/3 c sugar, and didn’t use the frosting (made it for my 1 year old). It was a good sneaky way to get in those carrots!
My husband is Swiss and his mother has made this cake for him since he was a kid. He loves it and is so happy that I can now duplicate his Mother’s cake. Hazelnuts can easily replace the almonds.
This cake was good but it is not your typical carrot cake, it has a light lemony taste. I frosted it with a cream cheese frosting that I added lemon zest and vanilla to.
This is a delicious and uniquely-flavored, lemony cake. I cut the sugar to half a cup and it was plenty sweet. I also topped it with a glaze made from the juice of half a lemon and some powdered sugar. Note: it only took about 20 minutes to bake in my oven. My husband and family topped the cake with plain yogurt and gave rave reviews. I’ll definitely make it again, but double the recipe next time!
Tasty cake, but does tend to stick! Very good with the addition of flake coconut. Be warned however that I found the statement “no added fat besides what’s naturally contained in the eggs” to be misleading: the 1 cup of ground almonds is going to add what you may see as significant, albeit “good”, fat in this recipe.
Made this for my friend’s b’day the past two years in a row and everyone LOVED it — it was gone in a minute!
As a reviewer said before me, it turned out really thin and I think tasteless. I lined the pan with waxed paper and it helped A LOT! The sides of the pan needed a can of elbow grease for it to come clean. I carefully followed the recipe….
I’ve made it twice, this is my favourite..I also used less sugar (a bit more than a 1/2 cup). Frosting just adds extra calories, not the taste..
My husband suffers from chf and this cake is great for him due to the lower fat content.I watch what he eats so I really enjoy this one because he can have something sweet with a little less fat in it and still have great taste.
Good if you want something way different than traditional American carrot cake. It tasted good, just different. Lots of lemon flavor. Light texture, but almost too light, and almost too sweet. This went over only so-so.
Sooooooooooooo yummy & moist . . . I was looking for a recipe that was light – the ones in the recipe books looked really dense and heavy – and this really hit the spot. My favourite recipe from this site so far. So why didn’t I give it 5 stars? Well, I had to change a few things . . . I halved the sugar, and replaced half the ground almonds with raisins and chopped walnuts. And I didn’t ice it. With those adjuctments it was definately full marks, but as I had to make those changes myself I felt I could only give it a four. Anyway, definately try this recipe! I promise it’s well worth it!
Really wonderful carrot cake, amazingly light, and fresh tasting. I substituted ground walnuts for almonds, as I didn’t have almonds and cut the sugar back to 1/2 a cup, and probably could have done with even less. No need to frost this cake, but the glaze sounds good, too. This recipe is quite simple, and makes a beautiful cake!
what a surprise to see a typical swiss recipe. the cake was excellent! I used less sugar. Also my cake did not stick at all. I used a non stick pan and used Pam instead of oil to cover the pan this cake tasted much better than the kind you buy here in the shops