As a special gift to you all on the first day of 2013, my wonderful, creative, and talented wife, Fatma, has allowed me to share her famous carrot cake recipe.
Not only is this the tastiest, most wholesome carrot cake ever likely to pass your lips, it is also unbelievably light, containing almost no fat or butter, and is so easy to make, even I can do it.
Ingredients (for a 24 cm diameter cake):
Cake
5 Large eggs
1 cup of white granulated sugar
1.5 cups of shredded carrots (3 or 4 medium-sized)
1 cup of roasted chopped walnuts
2 cups of self-raising wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1.5 teaspoons of cinnamon
2 teaspoons of ground gingerFilling / Frosting
300 – 400g of light cream cheese
2 – 3 Tablespoons of icing sugar
Generous sprinkling of dessicated coconut
Pre-heat the oven to 175C
Put the flour, cinnamon, ginger and baking soda into a small bowl, mix them together and put to one side.
Place the walnuts on a tray and pop them in the oven for just a few minutes so they will release more flavour into the mix. Don’t let them burn though. If there are still large pieces, break them up a bit more after warming.
Grate the carrots.
Crack the eggs into a large mixing bowl and whisk in the granulated sugar until fully dissolved and the mixture looks light and creamy.
Add in the carrots and walnuts and whisk on low-speed for about a minute until the mixture is evenly distributed.
Now add the flour, cinnamon, ginger and baking soda and continue whisking for just 20 – 30 seconds until all the flour has disappeared. Note, if you whisk too long, it may not raise so well.
Pour the mixture into a cake mould or baking tin and bake it in the oven for 45 minutes.
When cooked, an inserted wooden skewer should re-emerge dry.
Leave it to cool before removing from the mould.
We usually tend to then wrap the cake in cling-film and leave overnight before slicing laterally and adding the filling / frosting – partly because this makes it easier to cut and partly because it seems to taste better on the second day anyway – but you can skip this and add it straight away if in a hurry.
Just mix the cream cheese and icing sugar together until smooth. (Add more or less sugar according to taste)
Apply about 2/3 of the mix to the bottom half, pop on the top half and cover with the rest.
Add a generous sprinkling of dessicated coconut to the top of the cake for an extra tasty finishing flourish – This is not essential but it definitely adds something if you have some (which I didn’t for the one in the photo:-( ).
This frosting will not go hard like icing and since it contains cheese, the cake should be covered in cling-film, kept in the fridge, and consumed within a week – although it’s never lasted that long with me or any of my family around 🙂
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