Carrot Cake

I walked into Tesco the other day, and they had the 500g bags of Carrots on offer for 6 pence—NOT even exaggerating. Inspired with the bags of carrots in my fridge, I decided to bake a Carrot Cake.

I immediately asked my Aunt for her recipe, and opted to make some slight changes. The cake came out rich and moist, and the creamy frosting enhanced the carrot flavour. 

Most cakes don't need to be refrigerated over night, but honestly, I prefer to eat carrot cake after it has had a few hours to chill. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy the recipe, and don't be afraid to try it out on your own!

Carrot Cake

Ingredients

Cake

2 cups Sugar

1 ½ cups Vegetable Oil

4 Eggs

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

2 ¼ cups Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

2 tsp Baking Soda

2 tsp Cinnamon

½ tsp Nutmeg

½ tsp Ground Cloves

1 tsp Salt

2 cups Shredded Carrots

1 cup Walnuts, finely chopped

1 cup Raisins, roughly chopped

Frosting

300g Philadelphia Cream Cheese

150g Butter, softened

225g Powdered Sugar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160C/ 325F. Line, or grease a large round pan—I used a spring pan because none of my other pans were large enough to hold the batter, but you can even use a sheet pan if you like.

2. In a bowl, cream oil and sugar. Add eggs and Vanilla, and mix until combined.

3. In another bowl, sift all your dry ingredients (spices, flour, salt & leavening agents).

4. Add your dry ingredients to your wet ingredients and mix with a spatula (so you don’t overmix) until combined. Fold in your walnuts, carrots and raisins.

5. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for about 1hr 15 minutes, or until tester comes out clean (if your cake starts to brown on top, just cover with aluminium foil). TRY NOT TO OPEN THE OVEN DOOR UNTIL CAKE IS BAKED or it will cause your cake to sink on the top (this happened to me with my walnut cake if you all remember)

6. When the cake is ready, remove from the oven and let cool in the tin for about 5 minutes. Remove from tin and place on wire rack to finish cooling.

OPTIONAL: I chose to have only 1 layer for my cake, but feel free to cut your cake into two layers, with frosting in the middle.

7. Frosting: Beat the sugar, cream cheese and softened butter until creamy and fluffy. 

8. Cut a thin layer off the top of your cake, just to make it even (you don't have to do this, but it does lend to an evenly topped cake). Spread your frosting with an offset spatula (or even a flat knife can work) all over the cake. I suggest you crumb coat the cake first—spread a thin layer of frosting on your cake and then place in the fridge for about 30-40 minutes. Take your cake out of the fridge and then spread another, thicker, layer of frosting all over your cake. As for decorations, I used a star tip to form little rosettes, and then placed raisins on top of them. I also decorated the base of the cake with a bead like design, using a smaller tip.

ENJOY!

feel free to decorate it how you like