Carrot Cake
Carrot Cake
Denise Williamson
This recipe has been sent by a user of this site. When tested, it was very easy to make and the result was a delicious, moist cake. I have added some Indian names for a few ingredients for ease-Mamta. Serves 10
Pictures by Mamta Gupta
Ingredients
325 gm. carrots, approximately 4 average sized carrots. This is the weight of peeled carrots.
50-60 gm. walnuts
50-60 gm. chopped apricots or raisins (optional, but they do taste nice-Mamta)
125 gm. self-raising flour (maida)
125 gm. plain wholemeal flour (you can use chapatti flour)
2 tsp. of cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg (jaiphal)
1 tsp. mixed spice (use garam masala if you don’t have it)
1 tsp. ground ginger powder (saunth)
1 tsp. bicarbonate of soda (not baking powder)
250 ml. vegetable oil
175 gm. dark brown sugar
4 eggs
2 tbsp. honey
For Baking
A 22 cm. or 9 inch round cake tin. You can bake it in a square tin of same size (20-22 cm. or 8-9 inch), if you need to cut squares for serving.
Ingredients for Icing
200 gm. cream cheese. If you don’t have cream cheese, you can grind or knead fresh paneer until smooth.
50-60 gm. softened unsalted butter
50-60 gm. icing sugar
1 tsp. vanilla essence
Instructions
Heat oven to 160?C or 325??F or gas mark 3.
Grate carrots.
Measure all ingredients.
Chop walnuts. If you have a nut chopper, use that. Otherwise, roll them in a towel and break them up by hitting with a rolling pin.
In a separate bowl, sieve together self-raising flour, plain flour (wholemeal), cinnamon, ground ginger, nutmeg and bicarbonate of soda. Keep aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together oil, brown sugar, eggs and honey, until smooth, approximately 3 minutes by electric beater.
Add sieved dry ingredients and fold them in gently until the whole mix is smooth. You can do this with the beater blades, with the electricity turned off.
Add grated carrots, walnuts, raisins/apricots and fold them in with a wooden/plastic spatula.
Pour this cake mixture into a greased cake tin. Tap gently to spread it evenly.
Cook at 165?C for 60-80 minutes or until cooked (oven performances vary). To test, insert a bamboo skewer into the centre of the cake and pull it out. It should come out moist but clean. Do not overcook or your cake will dry out.
Allow to cool for 5 minutes before taking it out. Cool on a wire rack. You can serve it without the icing, I do.
For the Icing:
Mix cream cheese, butter, sifted icing sugar and vanilla essence, beat until smooth.
When the cake is cold, cover with a layer of icing, on top only, using a palette knife. You can slice the cake into half horizontally and use half of the icing as a filling to sandwich the two slices together.
