There are many carrot cake recipes. This version is a low fat moist cake and has been tried and loved by many carrot lovers and haters amongst our friends and family. This is a single layer tray bake version which is just how I like it. I hope you enjoy it too.
Link to measurement conversion chart
Ingredients: Makes 12 Portions
Cake
- 200g of carrots, grated
- 200g wholemeal self raising flour
- 175g soft dark brown sugar
- 175g sultanas
- 120ml sunflower oil
- 2 large eggs
- 3 tsp mixed spice
- 1 & ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- Grated zest of 1 orange Orange
syrup:
- Juice of ½ orange
- 1 tblsp lemon juice
- 1 & ½ oz soft dark brown sugar
You will also need
- a 10 x 6 inch cm baking dish lined with baking parchment
- a mixing bowl
- a hand or electric whisk
Method
- Pre heat your oven to 170C
- Whisk sugar, eggs and oil for 2-3 mins with an electric whisk
- Add the sifted flour, bicarbonate of soda and mixed spice, plus the bran and fold into the eggy mixture
- Fold in the carrots, sultanas and orange zest
- Put the mixture into your cake tin and bake for 35 – 40 mins, until springy in the middle
- While the cake is cooking, mix the syrup ingredients together in a bowl
- Whilst the cake is hot, slowly pour over the orange syrup, spreading it evenly over the cake
- Leave till cold, turn out of the tin and cut into 12 equal portions
- Will store in a tin without any topping for a week if it lasts that long. The cake improves with age.
Serving suggestions
- We prefer this without any topping, the original recipe calls for a soft cheese topping. See below for 2 different equally good soft cheese toppings, however the addition makes it higher in fat and more difficult to store.
- A vanilla or orange butter cream topping is equally tasty. Try our Meringue Buttercream for a slightly less sweet topping
- Carrot cake goes very well with nuts. If you don’t fancy a creamy topping try decorating the top with halved pecans or walnuts before baking
- This cake is great as a dessert with custard, cream or ice cream
- Tastes great on its own with a cup of tea/coffee
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Acknowledgements
The original recipe comes from “Delia’s How To Cook Book One”, a very much used book in our house.
Cream cheese topping version 1 “low fat”
- 9 oz Quark
- ¾ oz caster sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl and refrigerate until the cake is cold. Spread over the cake before cutting into slices and sprinkle with a little more cinnamon.
Cream cheese topping 2 “not so low fat”
- 5oz Mascarpone
- 4 fl oz Creme Fraiche
- 2 tsp caster sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Freshly grated nutmeg
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl and refrigerate until the cake is cold. Spread over the cake and grate a little nutmeg over the surface, before cutting into slices.
If you liked this recipe you might also like to try;
- Our take on welsh rarebit which we call Eggy Scrumble
- Having friends round or just want a tasty starter to share than Camebert with aspapragus dippers is good one to try
- Got lots of carrots and looking for something different for a veg then mashed carrots and swede is the go
We hope you have enjoyed these recipes and would love to hear from you if you have any recipes to share, serving suggestions or variations to add.
Happy eating!