Whew, I finally made a decent cake last term! With my hands failing me with my chocolate cake that looked like a burger to my crunchy apple crumble, I must say I was really proud to have made this Walnut Carrot Cake! I know I've made a walnut carrot cake before, but I think this one is particularly tasty and moist because of the icing and the deep cake tin that I used. :)This recipe was altered from the allrecipes recipe:
http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/18529/carrot-walnut-cake.aspx
which is by the way, an amazing recipe. I modified it slightly so here's my version:
Ingredients:
- 375g plain flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
- coffee mix (1 tsp instant coffee and 2 tsp hot water)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 225g butter, softened
- 220g brown caster sugar
- 200g white caster sugar
- 4 eggs
- 125g chopped walnuts
- 440g grated carrots
- 200g cream cheese
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- 70g butter
- 100g icing sugar
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees/gas mark 4. Line a deep cake tin 10" with greaseproof paper and grease the sides.
- Sift dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, bicarb) together into a large mixing bowl.
- In a separate bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add in the eggs one at a time and mix until light and fluffy. Pour in the coffee mix.
- Add the sifted ingredients. Mix well.
- Fold in the carrots and then the walnuts. Save some walnuts for garnish.
- Bake for 1 hour until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
- For the icing, mix the cream cheese with vanilla essence. Then add butter and sugar until smooth. Spread on cooled cake and top the edges with bits of walnuts.
It's a great recipe if you want a nice moist cake that is not oily like the traditional recipes. It's really simple to make (except the immense power used to grate carrots) so I would recommend it as an easy cake make! ;)
