Previously sworn to absolute secrecy, this recipe has been itching to be shared for far too long. Luxurious, moist, bursting with flavour and complete with carrots and nuts so you can convince yourself it's healthy, you will never ever find another carrot cake like it. It's decadent textures and gorgeously syrupy flavoured sponge are just perfectly complimented by the ever so slightly savoury cream cheese icing.
It is also SUCH an easy recipe that even a novice baker can get it right - as long as they know a few hacks. I'm going to bare it all here today!
The glorious thing abut this recipe is that it lends well to cupcakes, layer cakes, ring cakes and even loaves. A batch will yield 24 cupcakes, 1 enormous full size cake or up to three cake loaves (depending on the size of your trays).
Without further adieu, lets get baking!
You will need:
Electric mixer
A large mixing bowl
A chopping board
A knife for chopping
A grater
A wooden Spoon
Baking Paper/ cupcake holders
Spray and Cook
Scissors
Baking tins: Spring form for full cakes, or two to three loaf tins or two cupcake trays (12's)
Preheat the oven to 180deg celcius and get busy prepping your desired baking tray. You will need to spray them very thoroughly as this is an extremely high sugar content cake and it WILL stick if you don't. DO NOT use butter or oil or margarine. These will just leave you eating the carrot cake out of the tin (which I have totally done). You then need to line the tins either with baking paper, that you will need to cut out to fit the inside and sides of your tins or cupcake baking holders. Once your lining is in place, give everything another good spray, just incase.
This shape of tin is absolutely fantastic for this cake, but baking paper is not practical. You'll need to go a little extra crazy with the spray and cook if you don't want to eat it like this!
Cake Ingredients:
Cake Flour: x 2 cups
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons of bicarb
2 cups of sugar
1 1/2 cups of oil (sunflower works great)
4 eggs lightly beaten
2 cups of carrots (grated)
1 tin crushed pineapple (lightly drained)
1 pack of sprinkling nuts or 100g wallnuts or pecan nuts, crushed. You will use half in the batter and save half to decorate later.
1 cup desiccated coconut
This recipe is so easy you can literally throw everything into a large mixing bowl and stir with your wooden spoon. You don't need an electric beater. You will need to work those arm muscles though to make sure everything combines. Once well mixed, you can spoon the mixture into your baking trays.
Baking times:
Cupcakes: approximately 35 minutes
Loaves: approximately 45 minutes
Full cakes: approximately 70 minutes
Be sure to place your trays as centered as possible in the oven and not too close to the bottom or top. The high sugar content will also cause it to burn easily.
Once your baking time is up, remove from the oven and check to see if your cake is done by gently sliding a skewer into it. If it comes out clean, its done. If there is batter stuck to the skewer, it must go back in.
When your cakes are done place them on a cooling rack for at least an hour before flipping them over and out - gently - onto another cooling rack.
While you wait for these to cool off enough to ice, you can prepare the icing. Remember to never ice warm cake. It will melt and ruin your icing.
Icing Ingredients:
200g butter
400g icing sugar
250g cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Method:
Once again, you can just throw these all into a mixing bowl all together and mix! This time you'll need that electric mixer to get the light and fluffy texture you need.
When you are ready, you can spoon or pipe the icing onto your cake and then sprinkle with nuts for decoration.
This cake has an absolutely exceptional shelf life and is fantastic for coffee shops, Christmas gifts (as an alternative to traditional Christmas cake) or even for keeping at home to munch on. There's no hurry, so you can pace yourself. I see you!!!!Get your head out of the cake tin!!!!!
