Carrot Cake

In the beginning

Was a carrot salad. The salad was made of carrots, raisins, chopped apples and crushed macadamia nuts (dressed with a squeeze of lemon juice, salt and black pepper).

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In between

As good as the salad was, there are leftovers. And your mother brought you up to never throw food. She traumatized you by making you watch pictures of hungry children in Somalia or Turkana on tv. So like the well brought-up person that you are, you find a new way with leftovers.

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In the end

You pat yourself on the back for eating salad in its many forms and variations.

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Ice the salad with homemade cream cheese icing and proceed to stuff your face.

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It's Salad ... It's Cake ... It's Carrot Cake

  • Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 450 grams or 3 cups of grated carrots
  • raisins, crushed nuts, chopped apples (optional)
  • 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
  • 3 teaspoons mixed spice or cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 170ºC/350ºF.

Whisk 1 cup of sugar and 4 eggs until combined in a large bowl. Pour the 1 cup of oil gradually while whisking.

Fold in the 3 cups grated carrots and raisins and/or apple and/or crushed nuts.

In a separate bowl, mix the 2 1/2 cups flour, 1 1/4 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp bicarbonate, 3 tsp mixed spice and 1/2 tsp salt.

Gently fold in the dry ingredients into the carrot mixture until all the flour is combined.  Do not overmix. Pour into a greased and floured baking tin.

Bake about 35 min. Halfway through the baking time, rotate the baking tin front to back. until To know if it’s ready, when a knife is inserted it comes out clean. Cool and enjoy!


9 Comments Add yours

  1. The Village Beauty says:

    I made this cake and the same frosting. It’s a very good and easy recipe to follow. The cake tastes great as well, however the sugar may be too much if you’ve got the dried fruit in it. Is there a way to reduce on the sugar? Nonetheless, this is a lovely recipe. Will try out some more

    1. Hi! You have made my morning. I enjoy reading your blog! I am really glad you tried the recipe and that it turned out great. About the sugar, most definitely adjust it to the level of sweetness to what you like. May I suggest 3/4 of a cup and then 1/2 a cup of sugar (everything being constant ;)) until you get a level you like.
      Thank you and have a lovely day!

      1. The Village Beauty says:

        Thanks for the reply (didn’t get a notification, lucky I thought to check) and thank you very much for reading my blog. I’ll try out the tweak suggested and let you know. I’ve also tried the chocolate cake recipe but I want to redo, may have used too much heat and the cake didn’t turn out as I’d like. Please share more recipes and tell us the technicalities involved in the recipe- like I know without eggs, the cakes won’t ride… esp if you don’t use baking powder

        1. Good suggestion! I will explain technicalities more.
          In the chocolate cake, the cake rises because of the reaction of the acid in the mala with the bicarbonate of soda. If using regular milk, adding a Tablespoon of vinegar and leaving it for 5 minutes will give you a buttermilk substitute.
          Did the cake turn out better when you tried it again?

    2. Hi! You have made my morning. I enjoy reading your blog!
      I am really glad you tried the recipe and that it turned out great. About the sugar, most definitely adjust it to the level of sweetness you like. May I suggest reducing the sugar to 3/4 of a cup and if it is still too sweet, then 1/2 a cup the next time (everything being constant ;)) until you get it to the level you like.
      Thank you. Have a lovely day!

  2. village_beauty says:

    The chocolate cake did turn out better and so did the carrot. Waiting to try more recipes soon. Thanks as always

  3. BYBRON says:

    Olà!
    Wow I tried this recipe, a gluten free version of it way back in January ?? my apologies for the serious late feedback!

    It was my first trial at making the gluten free Carrot cake. It came out surprisingly well sweet and crusty and crumbly.

    I used Rice flour(I am having a challenge finding Cassava flour) and Oat flour and I reduced my sugar to 2 quatre cup.

    My challenge is getting to know which flour between Rice/Cassava and Oat flour is more than the other so I basically put an equal of both. Later I felt maybe one should be more than the other…what do you think? Then with gluten free you will cook it a lil longer either by 10min or just until the knife comes out dry and because it is not wheat it is extra crumbly. I am yet to learn how to make the icing but we shall get there?
    All the same my Host loved it so much! Her guests did not even figure it was gluten free! I loved it too first trial and well not so bad. Check out a pic of it on my IG page, bybes_waindi

    Thanks for the recipe!

    As we always say……on the next?

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