Carrot cake - with no nuts

This week it has been my boyfriends birthday. I had been asking him for weeks what cake he wanted and he finally decided on a carrot cake. I was a little worried as I have never made a carrot cake before. Even though I love carrot cake I have always put off baking it, im not too sure why, I think it is all the grating of the carrots that put me off and it wasnt even that bad! The cake was actually lovely and I will be making it more often, much to the delight of my boyfriend and my mum.


Because I needed this cake for a birthday I wanted it to be perfect, so I reached for my trusted hummingbird bakery cookbook. I adjusted the recipe slightly as my boyfriend wanted a cake with no nuts, and his wish was my command on his birthday! the recipe was also for a 3 layer cake but I wanted a more traditional two layer cake, so I just had slightly larger sponges.

I filled the cake and covered it with cream cheese frosting. It covered really well and there was enough buttercream left to add some piped detail. For the writing I used melted milk chocolate. So far the cake has lasted 3 days and is still really moist.

Carrot Cake  

Sponge

300g soft light brown sugar
3 eggs
300ml oil
300g plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
300g grated carrots

preheat the oven to 170'c

Mix the sugar, eggs and oil until well incorporated. Slowly add the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, salt and vanilla extract and continue to beat until well mixed.

Stir in the grated carrots until evenly dispersed.

Pour the mixture into 20cm (8") cake tins lined with grease proof paper. Bake for 20-25 minutes untill golden brown.

leave to cool and cover with creamcheese buttercream. I used a double quantity so I could cover and fill the cake

Cream cheese buttercream (single quantity)

300g icing sugar, sifted
50g unsalted butter, at room temperature
125g cream cheese, cold

Beat icing sugar and butter untill the mixture comes together and is well mixed, add the cream cheese in one go and beat untill it is completely incorporated. Then mix on a high speed untill light and fluffy.

do not overbeat, as it can become runny.

I think this recipe would also work well as cupcakes, I will try them and post the results soon.