This is the best and most delicious carrot cake you will ever eat, and as you can see by the pictures it had already been half devoured before I had a chance to photograph it. The key ingredients are the pineapple, chopped nuts and the carrots, which are cooked before being added to the cake mixture. This recipe makes a large cake, I often halve the ingredients and bake it in a ring tin.
Ingredients
750ml brown sugar
375ml sunflower oil
4 eggs
12,5ml vanilla essence
5ml salt
750ml cake flour
12.5ml bicarbonate of soda
5 ml ground cinnamon
5ml ground ginger
5ml all spice
5ml ground cardamom
375ml chopped walnuts or pecan nuts
375ml desiccated coconut
400ml carrots, cooked and chopped
200ml crushed pineapple drained
Icing
2 cups icing sugar
250g cream cheese (Philadelphia works the best)
50ml soft butter
5ml lemon juice
5ml lemon zest
Method
- Preheat oven the 180°C and grease two 20cm cake pans.
- Beat the sugar, oil, eggs, vanilla essence and salt together in a large mixing bowl until beautifully smooth and creamy.
- Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices into this mixture and blend thoroughly.
- Add the rest of the ingredients and mix. Pour the batter into the cake pans and bake for 45 to 60 minutes. When a skewer inserted into the cakes comes out clean, it is ready.
- For the icing, combine the icing sugar, cream cheese, soft butter, lemon juice, and lemon zest.
- Beat the mixture with a hand beater for 2-3 minutes to create a fluffy light icing.
- Ice the cake and decorate with crushed walnuts.
