Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Regular readers and friends of mine will know that my Mum was the cake baker in our family! And amongst many of her lovely delights was this very special recipe; Carrot and Pineapple Cake. I tend to find with carrot cake, people either love it or they hate it. When I was really young, I could not bare myself to try this creation.... carrots? in a cake? with fruity pineapple? Who on earth thought up that idea?! But as I got older and became more adventurous, I gave it a go. Ever since, I have had an addiction to carrot cake. Every time I go out for coffee to somewhere new and I see that they serve carrot cake, I HAVE to try it....it has become an obsession of mine to find one better (if not just as good) as my Mum's. To this day, I have still not found one that even rivals it!! 

This is the perfect cake for when you are in the mood for a bit of summery, zesty escapism.... perfect for January!

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Ingredients

200g peeled carrots, grated

200g tinned pineapple chunks

100g chopped walnuts (or other variations if you fancy)

300g plain flour

200g light soft brown sugar

4 eggs

250ml sunflower oil

Zest of 1 lemon

Zest of 1 orange

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
300g full fat cream cheese
60g icing sugar
150g butter

1. Preheat the oven to 130degreesC. This cake is a low and slow bake!!

2. Find and line a cake tin... I used a 24cm one for this recipe.

3. Sift the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, bicarb of soda and sugar into a large mixing bowl and stir until completely combined.

4. In a measuring jug, pour the oil, beaten eggs, lemon and orange zest as well as grated carrot. (This is my favourite part of the recipe, as the smells and textures are amazing.)

5. Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients. Mix until it resembles cake mixture and none of the dry ingredients are viewable.

6. Add in the pineapple and walnuts and fold until combined.

7. Pour into your cake tin and place on a baking tray in the oven. Allow to bake for about 1 hour and 15mins. (Keep checking on it depending on the size of your tin - the deeper the tin, the longer the cake will take to cook.)

8. Meanwhile, make your cream cheese frosting. Beat the butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy. Fold in the cream cheese and cover. Place in the fridge until hard, but pliable.

9. Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool for 5mins. 

10. Remove from the cake tin and place onto a wire rack until thoroughly cool.

11. Once the cake is completely cool, use a pallet knife to smooth the cream cheese frosting all over the cake. Decorate as you wish, I chose to use some left over walnuts to make it look pretty!!

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I am soooooo proud of this cake!! It was absolutely scrummy and tasted just like my Mum's used to. I took half of it into school...little sceptical of how it would go down, but man, everyone loved it! Some people even had seconds...made me very happy. Found it such an easy cake to bake and was really impressed with the results. Don't think it looks half bad either, even if I do say so myself!! Go on, give it a go!!

Bon Appetit!!