I’ve never baked a carrot cake before, so when I was searching for a recipe for this bake, I was surprised. I had all along thought of carrot cake as a healthier cake, but the recipes I see all had really high oil and sugar content. Anyway I finally found this one which is more reasonable and uses lots of carrots. Most importantly, it’s still soft, moist, crumbly and yummy.

You can also bake in a loaf tin and it makes a really quick and easy dessert.

Recipe (8″ cake)

Carrot Cake

• 300g carrots grated
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 160g to 180g caster sugar (already reduced from original 240g)
• 135g cooking oil
• 180g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 – 1.5 tsp cinnamon powder
• 50g raisins
• 50g crushed walnuts

Cream Cheese Frosting (adapted Enne Ty recipe)

• 250g cream cheese softened
• 60g Butter
• 1 tbsp yoghurt
• 125g icing sugar sifted

Method

1. Grate 300g of carrots.

2. Prepare two 8″ pans by lining the bottom, no need to grease or flour.

3. Sift flour, baking powder and soda, and cinnamon powder together. Set these aside.

4. Beat eggs with sugar and salt on high for 5-8 min (depends on mixer) till light and thick. You can use a hand whisk, and beat till foamy if you dont have electric machine.

5. Pour in oil in a small steady stream while whisking on low till well mixed.

6. Add flour in 3 batches and whisk for 10 sec after each addition. Use spatula to scrape down sides.

7. Add the carrots and mix with spatula.

6. Pour into 2 cake tins and add walnuts and raisins directly on top. Bake at 175 deg C for about 25 min until skewer comes out clean.

7. Remove from tin and cool on rack.

8. For frosting, add all ingredients in mixing bowl and whisk till smooth.

9. Stack the two cakes together with cream cheese in the middle and decorate as you like. The frosting is very stable even at room temperature but chill if you feel it gets runny. The cake body has been stored in the fridge (cling wrap) for 2 days before frosting and remains soft and moist.

10. Do note that the amount of cream cheese frosting is only just nice for this cake and may not be enough to do a thick frosting or fancy piping. As both carrot cake and cream cheese are really flavorful, a thin frosting goes on just nice. If you prefer to have more frosting, please increase the amount by 20% or so.