I had 3 sad carrots lost in my fridge drawer so instead of making soup I turned them into a delicious carrot cake. I made this recipe regularly when I lived in France as my host dad loved to have a slice (sans icing) for breakfast every morning which he dunked in his bowl of coffee. I haven’t made this recipe for years and I have no idea why (original post) – moist, slightly spiced cake spotted with crunchy nuts and covered in cream cheese icing, what’s not to love? I also owed a friend some baked goods after being on the receiving end of some of her cheesecake, so on Sunday afternoon I made a carrot cake to share.
It can be made on one bowl (minimal clean up drives most of my cooking!) and grating the carrots is great exercise. I sliced the cake into slivers and wrapped and froze individual portions for later. The icing held up really well and now I can have a slice with a cup of tea whenever I feel like it! Well, at least until it runs out and it’s time to make another one.
Ingredients
Cake
- 2 cups brown sugar (lightly packed)
- 2 cups plain flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
- 4 eggs
- 3 cups grated carrots
- 1 cup chopped nuts (walnuts, almonds work well)
Icing
- 500g cream cheese at room temperature
- 1/2 cup icing sugar
- splash vanilla extract
Method
- Preheat oven to 180C and prepare 28cm cake tin.
- Combine sugar, flour, salt, spices, baking powder and oil in a bowl.
- Add eggs and mix well.
- Stir in carrots and walnuts.
- Pour into cake tin and place into oven. Bake for 50-60 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
- For the icing, mix together all ingredients and spread on cooled cake.
