Description
Delight friends with an afternoon tea that includes this easy carrot cake. You can bake the cake, freeze it and just drizzle over the icing on the day
Ingredients
- 175g light muscovado sugar
- 175ml sunflower oil
- 3 eggs, lightly beaten
- 140g grated carrots, about 3 medium carrots
- 100g raisins
- zest of one orange
- 175g self-raising flour
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon grated nutmeg
- 175g icing sugar
- 2 tablespoon orange juice
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4/Fan 160C. Oil and line the base and sides of an 18cm square cake tin with baking parchment.
- Tip the sugar into a large mixing bowl, pour in the oil and add the eggs. Lightly mix with a wooden spoon. Stir in the grated carrots, raisins and orange zest.
- Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices, then sift into the bowl. Lightly mix all the ingredients - when everything is evenly amalgamated stop mixing. The mixture will be fairly soft and almost runny.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40 - 45 minutes, until it feels firm and springy when you press it in the centre. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn it out, peel off the paper and cook on a wire rack. (You can freeze the cake at this point).
- Beat together the icing sugar and the orange juice until smooth. You want the icing about as runny as single cream. Set the cake on a serving plate and boldy drizzle the icing back and forth in diagonal lines over the top, letting it drip down the sides.