Carrot Cake

Serve 10 portions
Ready in 90 minutes

Ingredients

For the cake

• 250g Caster sugar
• 300g Plain flour
• 2 tsp Baking powder
• 1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tsp Ground cinnamon
• 185ml Sunflower oil
• 400g Carrots, peeled and grated
• 55g Walnuts, chopped or bashed up
• ¾ tsp Salt
• 4 Eggs

For the icing

• 250g Icing sugar
• 180g Cream cheese
• 180g Butter, at room temperature
• 3 drops of Vanilla extract

Instructions

1.  Preheat the oven to 180ºC/ 350ºF/ Gas 4. Grease and flour a 24 cm spring-form cake tin.
2. Combine the sugar and eggs together until creamy, then whisk in the sunflower oil.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and salt together. Add to the egg mixture and whisk to combine.
4. Mix in the carrots and walnuts thoroughly as you don’t want large chunks of carrots in your cake.
5. Scrape the mixture into the tin and bake for about an hour. Check it regularly after 30 min and insert a clean skewer to see if it comes out clean. You do not want to overcook it as carrot cakes are meant to be moist!
6. To make the icing, whisk together the icing sugar and butter until it is stiff. Then whip the cream cheese and vanilla in to combine.
7. Once your impressively risen carrot cake has cooled, spread the icing generously over the cake – the messier the better, then eat!
8. If you want your cake to look professional, you can slice your carrot cake in half and simply fill with your icing mix to create a sandwich.