The plump raisins, nutty wholemeal flour and crunchy walnuts worked beautifully with moist grated carrot sponge and mild cinnamon flavours running throughout. It has been a long time since I’ve made a carrot cake. I had a glut of carrots to use from a weekly shop and decided now was the time! This is easily my favorite cake or at least makes top 3. Its a classic! There is something so wholesome and filling about it. Not just a sugary indulgence but the spices, carrots and wholemeal flour make it into something more special, a hybrid moving more towards dessert territory perhaps?
Maybe it stems from being a child when my mum used to walk with me down to the local shops at the weekend and me always picking the slice of carrot cake with fondent carrots decorating the top, delicately peeling the carrot off, savouring the slice and saving that carrot till last. It is a proper comfort food for me. Unfortunately this version has a rather less exciting topping – but nonetheless delicious.
Now that I have the more traditional version out my system, I want to experiment with a vegan recipe next so watch this space….
Ultimate Zesty Carrot Cake with Raisins and Walnuts
Ingredients
- 1 Large Orange
- 100g Raisins
- 125ml Vegetable Oil
- 125g Wholemeal Flour
- 1 Tsp baking powder, plus a pinch
- 1 rounded Tsp Ground Cinnamon
- 1/2 Tsp All Spice
- 100g Dark Soft Sugar
- 40g Light Brown Soft Sugar
- 240g Grated Carrots
- 2 Eggs
- 100g Self-Raising flour
- 60 Walnuts, Roughly Chopped
Icing
- 175g Icing Sugar
- Squeeze of Juice from an Orange
- 12 Whole Walnuts
Preheat the oven to 160c/140C Fan Oven/Gas mark 3. Grease and line a 20cm Square Tin. Firstly zest the whole orange. Measure the raisins and squeeze out 3 Tbsp of juice from the zested Orange, pour on the raisins to soak up the juice. Save the rest of the orange to make the icing later.
Grate the carrots and set aside. Measure the dry ingredients in a bowl and stir together.
Get two bowls. Separate the first egg, put the yolk in one bowl and the white in another. Crack the other egg into the bowl with the yolk. Whisk the bowl with the egg and the yolk. Add the sugar to this and continuing whisking till thick and foamy. Slowly pour in the oil, whisking as you go along, then add the orange zest.
Rinse and pat the whisk dry. To the bowl with the egg white, add a pinch of baking powder.Whisk till you get soft peaks. Fold into the bowl containing the egg yolks, sugar, oil & zest.
Add to this half the bowl containing the dry ingredients. Stirring gently till mixed well. Then add the other half of the dry. Finally, add the grated carrot, raisins with juice and walnuts. Fold till incorporated evenly.
Pour the mix into the tin and level it out.
Bake for an hour, check with a skewer.
After the cake has fully cooked, in a medium bowl measure the icing sugar. Using 3-4 Tbsp of water and 2-3 Tbsp of Orange juice, thoroughly mix the icing sugar and liquids into a thick icing. You want it at a consistency where it doesn’t even drip off a spoon when tilted slightly. Add liquid or icing sugar to adjust accordingly.
Spread evenly across the top and place walnuts in whatever pattern you desire! Finish with a fine sprinkling of cinnamon (optional, I just really love cinnamon!)
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