Carrot Cake

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before but I am so hungry all the time.  A couple or at most three hours after eating I need to eat again, and I find fruit just doesn’t work, fresh or dried, it just makes me even more hungry.    So that’s where this carrot cake comes in, because I’ve found that cake does work, as long as it’s not too sweet and doesn’t have lots of icing on it.   So yes, I could have made a lovely cream cheese icing to go on this but after trying the first piece it was so lovely and moist that I felt it really didn’t need icing.   Also, I’m the type of person who often leaves half the icing on the plate anyway or gives it to someone else.   Some people will have a piece of cake because of the icing, but I will have a piece of cake because of the cake, and that must be the   right way around.   I know that you’re either agreeing with me completely or now thinking that I am a little bit odd, so let’s go on to the cake.     I found the recipe on the BBC Good Food site and it’s by Angela Nilsen.   It is described as the ‘ultimate makeover’ carrot cake and is supposedly healthier than most carrot cakes.  It certainly has lots of carrot in it anyway, which is why I began searching for carrot cake recipes in the first place.  I had far too many carrots in the fridge and needed to find ways of using them up.  What I loved about this cake was that it was so moist and slightly stick and there’s nothing I would change about it next time.   If you want to see the recipe of the icing as well as the cake, have a look at the original recipe.

As this cake used up some of my extra carrots, I am sending it to Frugal Food Fridays, hosted by Tales of Pigling Bland. I am also linking to Sweets for a Saturday.

Ingredients – Cuts into 16 pieces

Juice and zest of 1 orange

140g raisins

125ml rapeseed oil

115g wholemeal flour

115g self-raising flour

1tsp baking powder + an extra pinch

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

140g soft brown sugar

280g finely grated carrot (approx 370g before being peeled)

2 eggs

How to Make Carrot Cake

1. Mix the orange juice and zest into the raisins and leave for a while.

2. Mix together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon.

3. Separate one of the eggs.  Put the white to the side for now.   Break the other egg into the yolk. Whisk for a few seconds then add the sugar and continue to mix for a couple of minutes.   Then slowly pour in the oil as you are whisking.

4. Add the flour in two stages and fold into the mixture.  Then fold in the raisins and carrots.  The mixture will be very stiff and if it is too stiff add an extra tsp of water or juice.

5. Add the extra pinch of baking powder to the egg white and whisk till it forms soft peaks.   Fold this into the rest of the cake mixture.

6. Pour the mixture into a square cake tin (approx 20cm across) lined with paper and bake in the oven at 160C for an hour.    When ready, let it cool for a few minutes then take out of the tin,  peel the paper off and leave to cool on a wire cake rack.