C is for ....Carrot Cake

It is Comic Relief time and the school's densely packed missives have turned into a flurry of directives. Today is the cake stall, change pile, Glee club(?) to mention but a few. Pickle is ill but I am not sure of that qualifies as a legitimate excuse, so I reached for Saint Dan, patron saint of Elasticated waists.

Carrot cake




(I will do my bit, but school can not be trusted with one of my vintage tins so they get Tupperware. )

100g plain flour
75g wholemeal flour (this is as I have to leave out the nuts for school and this gives the recipe a bit more bite - I thought I may need to add a little orange juice to compensate but in the end it was fine)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
100g light soft brown sugar
75g rapadura sugar (again this is my amendment, the recipe requires just 200g light soft brown and none of my new found poncey stuff)
150ml sunflower oil
3 medium eggs
150-200g grated carrots (3 smallish ones)
If not for school - 75g chopped walnuts or pecans

Icing
200g full fat cream cheese
100g butter, soft
Zest of an orange
A teaspoon of lemon or orange juice

Heat oven to 180'c and grease and line two 20 cm round tins.

You can adjust for whatever tin / tins you have) I did a double batch and did one as directed and a single 27 cm tin too which took about 40 mins to cook in a separate oven. Generally the thinner the layer of mix (I.e larger tin) the shorter the cooking time, and where I doubled the mix in a larger tin it took longer to cook.

Sift the flour and spices together. In a large bowl mix the sugar and oil then beat in the eggs until smooth. Stir in the carrots then fold in the for mixture. divide between the two tins, or pour into whatever tin arrangements you have. Bake for about 25mins until springy to touch and an inserted skewer comes out with just a few crumbs clinging to it.

Beat the icing sugar and butter together with a little cream cheese until smooth, then add the rest of the icing ingredients. Use the icing to sandwich the two layers and on top.

Enjoy - or hope some lucky person pays loads of money for it. :)