Donna Hay's Carrot Cake

Last week, I asked Justine what kind of cake she would like, and she nominated carrot cake.  Super!  I hadn't made carrot cake for a while, so was glad to oblige.

I don't like repeating recipes I have already made, so I headed to my cookbooks for a new carrot cake recipe.  I came up with a carrot cake from Donna Hay's Modern Classic 2.   Donna rarely lets me down, so that is what I went with.

The end result was a moist, delicious carrot cake, that was good to the last crumb.  The cream cheese frosting recipe was a bit so so, as I found that I needed way more icing sugar than Donna quotes to get the icing thick enough to stay on the cake.   However, if you ignore that, it really is a super cake, and well worth making.

The recipe is as follows:

1 1/4 cups brown sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
2 1/2 cups grated carrot (~3 medium carrots)
1/2 cup chopped pecan nuts (I substituted walnuts)
1/2 cup sultanas  (I substituted raisins)

Preheat your oven to 180°C and grease and line a 9" round cake tin. Place the sugar and oil in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 2-3 minutes, then add the eggs and beat well. Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and ginger over the sugar mixture and beat until just combined.

Add the carrots, nuts and sultanas and mix until just combined. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for 55-60 minutes or until cooked through.

Allow the cake to cool completely before spreading with cream cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Process 250g softened cream cheese in a food processor until smooth. Add 1/3 cup sifted icing sugar and 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice and process until smooth. (As stated above, I used significantly more icing sugar - I found the icing was too runny with just 1/3 cup icing sugar.)