Saturday was my uncle’s birthday.

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese frosting

This week was exam week. I had two papers, Operations Management on Tuesday, and Media Writing on Wednesday. I’d say that my papers were pretty okay, except that I didn’t really manage to finish my Media Writing paper. Fingers crossed that that little bit I didn’t include won’t really cost me :/

After my paper on Wednesday, it felt like exams were over. I went back, baked some Madeleines (from the really good Le Cordon Bleu recipe), watched a couple of episodes of my Korean drama which I’m currently hooked onto (Lie to Me), and slept like a pig.

With that sort of behaviour, there was no excuse for me not to be baking my uncle’s birthday cake. I was glad that my mom asked me to do so anyway. I don’t usually get a chance to frost whole cakes and baking one and then frosting it nicely for no rhyme or reason isn’t really cost effective so this was a chance for me to practice my frosting skills.

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I stuck with a classic carrot cake recipe out of my mom’s recipe folder and paired it with the decadent Cream Cheese frosting that I’ve been using for years.

I’m glad to say that everyone enjoyed my (very tall) cake, although I could definitely have decorated and frosted it better.

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This carrot cake recipe is moist, but not to the extent of that of a pudding, and is perfect for any tea time treat or even for breakfast. Freshly grated carrots, coconuts, crushed walnuts, raisins and a slather of luscious cream cheese, this cake is perfect for anyone.

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Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese frosting

Makes one tall 8 inch cake / 10 x 15 x 2 inch baking dish

Ingredients:

– 2 cups all purpose flour
– 2 tsp baking powder
– 1 tsp baking soda
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 1 tsp ground cinnamon
– 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
– 1/2 tsp all spice
– 4 eggs
– 1 cup white sugar
– 1/2 cup light brown packed sugar
– 2 tsp vanilla extract
– 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil (you can use canola oil or grapeseed oil)
– 2 cups fresh grated carrots
– 1 can (20 oz) crushed pineapple, drained but not squeezing out the juice
– 1/2 cup dessicated coconut
– 1 cup chopped walnuts
– 1 cup raisins

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees celcius. Coat your tin with butter
  2. In a bowl, stir together sifted flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and all spice. Set aside
  3. In another bowl, mix together eggs, sugar and vanilla (by hand). Stir in the oil. You’ll get a pudding like mixture
  4. Gradually stir int he dry ingredients, fold in the carrots, pineapple, coconut, walnuts and raisins.
  5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan (make sure that it’s kinda flat on the top)
  6. Bake for 55-60 minutes in preheated oven (or until your skewer comes out clean)

Cream Cheese Ingredients:

– 500 g cream cheese (I use philidelphia)
– 250g unsalted butter
– 8 heaped chinese tbsp of icing sugar (SO SO sorry I don’t ever weigh out how much icing sugar I put in)
– zest of 1 lemon

Directions:

  1. Cream together butter and sugar that has been cut into cubes
  2. Once smooth, add in icing sugar by the tbsp. Do not add it in too fast or it will not be smooth and you may have to mix the frosting for longer than necessary, resulting in a watery frosting
  3. Add in the zest of lemon
  4. Finally, smear on top of the cake to enjoy

Love,

Eugenia