Carrot Cake!

We have a bit of a glut of carrots at the moment. No idea why really, but we do.

So what better excuse to make Carrot Cake?!

I have a great recipe from a book called Spectacular Cakes by Mich Turner, and it is very yummy.

BUT, it is a bit of a faff, which always puts me off slightly.
However, it is really THE BEST carrot cake ever ever ever. So sometimes, you just have to suck it up, and accept that for some lovely things, there is often a lot of washing up to do…

For a 9″ round cake you need:

• 60ml dark rum (I use orange juice)
• 250g sultanas or raisins
• 440g plain flour
• 5 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2.5 tsp ground nutmeg
• 2.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 375ml sunflower oil
• 190g golden caster sugar
• 190g light brown soft sugar
• 5 medium eggs
• zest of 2 1/2 lemons
• zest of 2 1/2 oranges
• 450g carrots-peeled and grated
• 125g desiccated coconut
• 125g walnuts, chopped (optional-I leave these out)
• 2.5 tsp vanilla extract

This is what you do:

• Pour the rum/OJ over the raisins and leave to infuse for 1hr
• Pre-heat the oven to 150C  (fan 140C), gas mark 2
• Prepare the cake tin-grease and line with non-stick baking paper
• Sieve together the flour, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, and bicarbonate of soda
• Beat together the sunflower oil, sugar and eggs until smooth
• Stir the flour mix into the smooth batter
• Add the zests, grated carrot, desiccated coconut, walnuts, vanilla extract and marinated raisins with any residual liquid
• Stir well to combine
• Spoon the mix into the tin and bake for approx 1 3/4 hrs, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean

While the cake is baking, make the citrus syrup for the top. You will need:

• 135g light brown soft sugar
• juice of 1 lemon
• juice of 2 oranges

Then you just need to:

• Place the sugar in a jug, and add the citrus juices
• Stir well, and continue to stir at intervals
• Once the cake is baked, remove it from the oven and immediately pierce it with a skewer several times
• Then carefully spoon over the syrup and leave the cake to cool before removing it from the tin

I then split it and iced it with orange flavoured buttercream. (I took this picture ages ago, and I had had to use blood oranges, as this was all we had, hence the slightly pink colour of the icing!)

It is a bit of a performance, and I wouldn’t make this cake everyday.
But it is delicious…