Carrot Cake
Ingredients
250 ml Olive oil
250 gm Caster sugar
4 Egg(s)
250 gm Plain flour
2 tsp Baking powder
2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Ground cloves
1 tsp Cardamon
1 tsp Salt
125 gm Walnuts
500 gm Carrots
75 gm Sultanas
75 gm Dried apricots
Topping
125 gm Unsalted butter
2 tsp Vanilla essence
250 gm Mascarpone
125 gm Icing sugar
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 170�C.
Wash and peel the carrots and chop finely in a food processor (or grate them). Chop the nuts.
Put the olive oil, sugar and beaten eggs into a bowl and mix well. Sift the flour and other dry ingredients and add to the egg mixture. Finally add the grated carrots and chopped nuts and mix well. Pour into a prepared greased 24cm cake tin and bake for 1 hr 20 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool.
To make the icing, cream the butter, mascarpone and vanilla essence, then gradually add the icing sugar. Remove the cake from the tin and spread the icing over the top.
Notes
The amount of spices can be increased if preferred.
Pecan nuts can be used instead of walnuts.
Cream cheese can be used in place of mascarpone.
Use of cheese in the icing means it must be eaten quite quickly. The icing could be replace by normal butter icing without any cheese.
Variation
For the topping, use buttercream icing flavoured with lemon or passion fruit or icing made with lemon juice and icing sugar.
For gluten-free version use gluten-free flour.
Acknowledgements
Celia Brooks Brown
24 Sep 2023
Shirl Seath