CARROT CAKE
This Recipe Makes 1 Cake
Carrot Cake is my absolute favourite of all cakes. It’s simple yet so delicious with the best of flavours.
Basically, a carrot cake has shredded/grated carrots that is mixed into the batter, adding nuts is optional but I find it adds so much of flavour & texture to the cake so I definitely recommend adding them in as well. Other recipes call for pineapple as this makes the cake moist but trust me, it isn’t needed in this recipe because it is already super moist.
Cream cheese or Mascarpone is always a must as a frosting for carrot cake. It adds the perfect amount of decadency to this yummy cake.
Carrot Cake Ingredients:
Cake:
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ginger powder
- 1 tablespoon Allspice powder (cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon)
- 100 grams Walnuts
- ½ cup castor sugar
- 2 eggs
- 150 ml vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- 2 large carrots
Frosting:
- 250 grams Cream Cheese or Mascarpone
- 60 grams butter
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
- ¼ cup icing (confectionery) sugar
- ½ cup Walnuts
Method:
-
- Firstly, preheat the oven to 160° Celsius.
- Sift the all-purpose flour.
- Lightly crush the 100 grams of walnuts so that they are a bit chunky.
- Add the all-purpose flour into a mixing bowl.
- To the flour, add in the baking powder, bicarbonate of soda & the salt.
- Add in the ginger powder & the Allspice. If you do not have Allspice on hand, simply grind a few cloves, some nutmeg & cinnamon sticks until it’s in a powder form.
- Finally, add in the lightly crushed walnuts.
- Give it a good mix & set aside.
- Peel, rinse & cut off the bottom ends of the carrots.
- Using the finer side of the grater, grate the carrots & set aside.
- To another mixing bowl, add in the castor sugar.
- Crack in the eggs.
- Pour in the vegetable oil & the vanilla essence.
- Mix until well combined.
- Add the grated carrots to the wet mixture.
- Mix well.
- Add the dry ingredients (flour mixture) into the wet ingredients.
- Mix until all the ingredients are well incorporated but do not over mix as this will make the cake dense.
- Grease a 18 cm baking/cake pan.
- Pour the cake batter into the greased pan.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes at 160° Celsius. Stick a skewer/toothpick into the cake & if it comes out clean then the cake is done. If there is still batter on the skewer/toothpick, put the pan back into the oven for 5 minutes.
- Allow the cake to sit in the pan & cool for 10 minutes.
- After 10 minutes, remove the cake from the pan & set it onto a cooling rack.
- Allow the cake to cool completely.
- In the time being, make the frosting.
- Make sure that the butter is at room temperature.
- Add the Cream Cheese to a mixing bowl.
- Add in the butter.
- Next, add in the icing (confectionery) sugar.
- Finally, add in the lemon juice.
- Mix well until smooth & creamy.
- Once the cake is completely cooled, carefully cut it in the middle, making them two halves.
- On the bottom half, add some of the Cream Cheese frosting.
- Smother the frosting evenly.
- Thereafter, place the top half of the cake over the frosting.
- Spread the remaining frosting over the top of the cake.
- Sprinkle whole or lightly crushed Walnuts over the the frosting.
- Slice & serve the delicious Carrot Cake.
- If you enjoyed these Carrot Cake, you may also enjoy these varieties of cakes.