Really simple Carrot Cake

Hello all!

This week we bake. There are lots of options (too many sometimes!) when it comes to choosing a cake, but I feel like a carrot cake is a classic for a reason. Unfussy, uncomplicated, unpretentious. So let’s get to it!

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 300 g self-raising flour
• 225 g dark brown sugar – the darker the sugar, the deeper the flavour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 3 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground mixed spice
• 250 ml sunflower oil
• 4 large eggs
• 200 g (or 3 medium sized) carrots, coarsely grated
• 100 g walnuts, roughly chopped, plus about 8 halves for decorating

For the icing:

• 50 g butter, room temperature
• 25 g icing sugar
• 250 g full fat cream cheese, room temperature
• A few drops of vanilla extract

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180° C.
• Grease a cake pan and line the bottom with baking paper.
• In a large bowl, add the dry ingredients and mix to combine.
• Add in the wet ingredients and combine thoroughly with the dry.
• Add in the carrots and walnuts and combine in the cake mixture.
• Pour the mixture in the cake pan and bake for about 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out dry.
• When baked, transfer to a cooling rack (don’t take it out of the pan just yet!)
• Whilst the cake cools down, take out the butter and cream cheese to room temperature. In a bowl, combine together the butter, cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla extract, using a hand mixer.
• When the cake is fully cooled down, remove from the pan and cut in half using a serrated knife.
• Spread half of the icing on the bottom half. Carefully put the top half back and use up the remaining icing. Decorate with the walnut halves.
• Enjoy!

Here is what my carrot cake looked like:

Again, this is a wonderful choice if you don’t want to spend too much time and/or effort and still have a beautiful cake to produce. And it’s sort of healthy, because it has carrots in it…? No? Ok.

I hope you like this recipe. Please let me know in the comments if you’ve tried it, what you thought, and maybe even send a picture of your carrot cake!

Happy baking!