Beautifully moist Carrot cake

Carrot cake is a bit of a favourite of hubby, though I've never been a fan. I guess Carrot cake is one of those things where everyone has their own idea of what makes it good, I've just never found one made just the way I like... until now!

This Carrot cake recipe was a result of a bit of time spent researching on the Internet until I found a recipe that looked just right for my tastes. It is fairly simple and easy to make and makes the most deliciously moist cake.

Recipe:

300g Plain flour

2 tsp Cinnamon

1 tsp Baking powder

250g Soft brown sugar

1/2 tsp Bicarb of soda

4 Eggs

250ml Vegetable oil

200g Carrots, finely grated

150g Walnuts

Zest of 1 lemon

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 130c. Line a 20cm x 10cm deep cake tin.

Sift the flour, cinnamon, baking powder and bicarb of soda together. Stir in 200g of the sugar (the other 50g is for the walnuts on the top of the cake).

Beat together the eggs, oil and lemon zest. 

Stir in the grated carrot and fold everything into the flour mix. 

Spoon the mix into the cake tin and bake for 1 hour 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. 

Whilst the cake is cooling you can get on with making the cream cheese frosting and caramelised walnuts for the topping. 

The recipe I used for the cream cheese frosting comes from Ruth Clemens (GBBO fame) 

Recipe:

70g Butter, softened

200g cream cheese (needs to be the branded stuff, not shops cheaper own brand.)

400g Icing sugar

The cream cheese should be used straight from the fridge, then drain off and discard the liquid.

The butter needs to be beaten until really soft, if it is too cold it will not combine properly with the cream cheese. 

Add the cream cheese and beat together until combined. Though be careful not to over beat the mix as the cream cheese will become runny the more you beat it. 

Sift in half of the icing sugar and beat together, then add the rest of the icing sugar and mix again. 

(A tip from Ruth on her recipe is that if you DO over beat your mix, don't add more icing sugar, just pop it in the fridge for half an hour to firm it up again).

Then the perfect cream cheese frosting is ready to be spread over the carrot cake. 

Next the walnut decoration.

I used walnut halves around the edge of the cake and made some salted caramel walnuts chopped up and sprinkled in the centre. Delicious! 

To make the salted caramel walnuts:

Gorgeous! Couldn't stop stealing little bits whilst sprinkling over the cake!

Use approximately 50g of soft brown sugar and melt gently in a saucepan. Add a pinch of sea salt and the remaining walnut halves (chopped) after decorating the outside of the cake. When all of the walnuts pieces are covered in the caramel tip out onto a clean surface to cool before sprinkling over the cake.

Be careful! Sugar gets extremely hot when melted, don't touch the caramel or walnuts until it has completely cooled.  

All that's left is to enjoy!!