Carrot cake

• 1 cup pecans or walnuts coarsely chopped (110g)
• 2 & 1/2 cups finely grated carrot (340g)
• 2 cups self raising flour (280g)
• 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 & 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 4 large eggs
• 1 & 1/2 cups castor sugar (300g)
• 1 cup sunflower oil (250mL)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla essence

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F)
2. Line TWO 23cm diameter round cake tins with baking paper
3. Toast the pecans/walnuts in a frypan until lightly browned and fragrant (about 8 minutes) set aside to cool
4. Peel and finely grate the carrots then set aside
5. In a separate bowl sieve and mix together the self raising flour, bicarb soda, cinnamon and salt
6. In a mixing bowl beat the eggs until frothy (about 1 minute)
7. Gradually add the castor sugar and vanilla essence
8. Add the oil and flour and mix with a wooden spoon
9. Stir in the grated carrot and chopped nuts
10. Pour and divide the mixture between the two cake tins.
11. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until the cake passes the clean skewer test.

ICING

• 250g packet cream cheese
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 & 1/2 cups icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

1. Beat the cream cheese and butter until it is smooth
2. Gradually add the icing sugar
3. Beat in the lemon zest and vanilla essence.
4. Once the cake is has cooled spread the icing out over the cake. You could decorate with walnuts and blueberries.

This is my mother in law Marilux’s recipe.

Note- The cake in the image is much larger than this recipe because we used it as our wedding cake. For our wedding cake we used 4 batches of this recipe using different tin sizes. If you use a large tin be careful of burning. The cake freezes well.