Delicious Carrot Cake

I felt like a real adult when my cake preference suddenly switched from chocolate to carrot. Don't get me wrong, I love a good flourless chocolate number from time to time, but there's something dang wholesome about this dessert. Perhaps because it counts as 1 of our 5-a-day? And if we count the pineapple and the lemon from the icing it's pretty much a salad...

This particular recipe is very versatile - it can make one giant carrot cake, 2 x medium carrot cakes (which you can stack to make a layer cake or have separately), or a bunch of carrot cupcakes! Keep that in mind and adjust the quantities to your preference, pals.

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Ingredients:

Cake

2.5 cups plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1.5 tsp bicarb/baking soda

2 tsp ground cinnamon

0.5 tsp ground nutmeg

0.5 tsp allspice

1 tsp salt

1.5 cups sugar

1.5 cups vegetable oil

4 eggs

3 carrots, grated

1 x 220g tin of crushed pineapple

200g chopped walnuts

Glaze (optional)

2 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tbsp milk

0.5 cup brown sugar

Icing

125g butter, cubed

250g cream cheese

4 cups icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

Juice and zest of 1 lemon

(Note: this makes a lot of icing, so if only wanting to ice the top of the cake, halve recipe)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (160C fan). Grease a 23cm round cake tin and line with baking paper.

2. Sift the dry ingredients together into a bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and oil, then add to the dry ingredients. Mix well then add the carrots, crushed pineapple and walnuts. Mix to form a smooth batter and pour into the cake tin.

3. Bake for 30 minutes then quickly prepare the glaze by placing all the ingredients for it in a small saucepan and heating over medium heat, stirring, until all the ingredients are combined.

4. Pull the cake out on the oven rack and carefully pour the glaze over the cake.

5. Bake for the rest of the baking time, roughly 40 minutes or until a bamboo skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes in the tin on a wire rack.

6. Prepare the icing by whipping the cream cheese, butter, icing sugar, vanilla essence, lemon juice and lemon zest together in a bowl. Wait for the cake to cool before icing.

7. Decorate as you please! Sprinkle with extra walnuts, sprigs of rosemary or lavender, or edible flowers!