Carrot Cake

This carrot cake (originally from Baking Bites) is amazing. It's easy to make, moist, nicely spiced and just everything you could ever hope for in a carrot cake.

I should know, as carrot cake has always been one of my favourites. It also has enough substance and flavour that you don't need icing but I will publish a recipe for simple cream cheese icing that works really well with this cake.

The recipe is quite flexible if you are missing a couple of ingredients - I've made it with different fruit juice depending on what I've got in the fridge and it's always been tasty.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups demerara sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 cup butter, melted and left to cool
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 - 3 medium carrots, grated


Preheat the oven to 175C.

In a large mixing bowl, beat together the sugar and eggs with a handwhisk until smooth and the mixture has changed to a lighter colour.

Stir in the melted and cooled butter, orange juice, vanilla, spices and salt. When it's all combined, sift in the flour and bicarbonate of soda. Stir gently until you have a smooth batter with no visible flour.

Stir in the grated carrot and make sure that it's well combined with the rest of the mixture.
Scrape the cake mix into a greased standard loaf tin (but this cake can be baked in a square baking pan or even muffin cases)1

Bake in the oven for 40 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes away clean. Be careful when opening the oven to check on the cake as it can sink in the middle!

Remove from the tin and cool.


1. If you are using this recipe for muffins, then you will only need to bake them for 25-30 minutes.