Cuisine – Sweet, sweet carrots

Spring is the perfect time to sow carrot seeds. I recently learned that in cooler climates like ours, we can continue planting every three weeks until midsummer. For me this is wonderful news. I love carrots raw, cooked, grated, skinned or peeled. I especially love them baked into a cake. The recipe I am about to share with you, if followed correctly, will produce one of the most scrumptiously, moist carrot cakes you have ever eaten. If, like me, you love a good carrot cake, this one will not disappoint. Go on, give it go.

Moreish Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

2 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 ¼ cups canola oil
1 cup raw sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
or extract
4 large eggs or 5 small eggs
3 cups peeled and grated carrots
1 cup chopped walnuts
100g softened butter
2 cups icing sugar
150g cream cheese
(take out of fridge 30 minutes before use)

Preheat the oven on bake at 180 degrees. Grease two 20cm round cake tins and line with baking paper. Grab two large mixing bowls. In the first bowl, sieve the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Mix until blended well. Put aside.

In the second bowl, whisk the oil, raw sugar, brown sugar and vanilla. Then add eggs one at a time, mixing well with each additional egg. Use a spatula to get the wet ingredients off the side of the bowl. Now add the dry ingredients from the first bowl to the wet, one third at a time. Mix well after each addition. Make sure that the batter is fairly smooth before you add more of the dry ingredients. Finally, stir in the carrots and nuts. Make sure all the ingredients are blended well.

Split the mixture, pour one half into each cake tin. Pop in the oven for 35-45 minutes.

Switch the racks half way through the bake if you are unable to get both tins on the same oven rack. Bake until the tops of the cakes spring back when touched. Insert a knife into the centre of each cake. If the knife comes out clean, the cakes are done. Let the cakes cool for 15 minutes before taking them out of the tins and turning on to a cooling rack.

Make sure the cakes have cooled off completely before you top with icing.
In a small bowl, beat softened butter and cream cheese. Then sieve in icing sugar and beat again until smooth. Top both cakes with the icing and sit one cake on top of the other to make a double decker. Enjoy with a nice cup of tea.

Nicola Bolton
nicolabolton.lan@gmail.com