My husband’s favourite cake is carrot cake. As his birthday is coming up I decided to make him one. The problem is that I don’t actually like carrot cake. I don’t like cinnamon or walnuts and I am a firm believer of vegetables staying in the savoury courses. As I’d never made a carrot cake before I decided to have a practice go, so when the kids asked to make a cake on Saturday I thought that we might take the opportunity.

The first thing I want to say about this cake is that it somehow managed to make twice the mess of normal cakes. I’m a tiny bit of a control freak when it comes to tidying up as we go during baking. As such I was rather stressed when we had batter, grated carrots and chopped walnuts all over the kitchen.

But hey ho, the kids were enjoying it and were very excited about carrot in a cake. We muddled through and all had a go at mixing.

When the cakes came out of the oven they weren’t the prettiest in the world but a cake leveler and a lot of cream cheese frosting made a decent job of it. I’m reliably informed that it tasted brilliant. The speed it is being demolished by my family is a good indicator, as is the fact that my daughter had a tantrum about wanting more before bedtime tonight.

The recipie is below for anyone who would like it, it is slightly adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook.

For the cake:

300g light muscavado sugar
3 eggs – beaten
300ml corn oil
300g plain flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1tsp baking powder
1tsp ground cinnamon
half tsp ground ginger
half tsp salt
half tsp vanilla extract
300g grated carrots
100g shelled walnuts – chopped
Pre-heat the oven to 170 c / 325 f and grease and line 2 x 20 cm tins

• Place the sugar, eggs and oil and vanilla extract in a free-standing mixer and beat to combine.
• In a separate bowl combine the flour, bicarb, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger and salt.
• Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet and continue to beat until smooth.
• Add the grated carrots and chopped walnuts then stir by hand to distribute evenly.
• Pour into the two tins and level the mixture
• Place in the preheated oven for about 30 min or until a cake tester / knife comes out clean.
• Turn out onto racks to cool

For the cream cheese frosting

600g icing sugar
100g butter – softened
125g cream cheese – cold

• In a free-standing mixer beat the icing sugar and butter together until combined.
• Add the cream cheese and beat at a medium speed for about 5 minutes until the mixture is light and fluffy.
  be careful not to over beat the frosting or the cream cheese will split and become runny.
• Use a palate knife to spread the frosting evenly and add extra chopped walnuts on top for decoration.