I’ve done this recipe a couple of different times and with a couple of different variants and luckily, I’ve enjoyed them all so hopefully you will too and you can adjust to your family’s taste!
The cake I made the other day didn’t have much orange and therefore just tasted mainly of the spices, but you can add more orange zest for a bigger kick.
I also don’t add raisins, simply because Mark doesn’t like them, but when I have added, I’ve added about 100g.
So I’ll give you the basic recipe without the orange zest, but add if you like.
I think it’s also common to use walnuts too, but again, we leave these out.
In regards to spices, I use a spice mix rather than cinnamon and nutmeg separately. I use the Steenbergs Organic ‘Pumpkin Pie Mix’ as I really like the combination they use and I’ve used it in lots of other baking, but otherwise cinnamon and nutmeg work great. If you live locally to Aberystwyth Maeth Y Meysydd do amazing fresh spices and whole nutmeg cloves.
Ingredients
3 large carrots, peeled and then either grated or blitzed in a blender. The grater will give you those nice specs of carrot or the blender will pretty much disguise that there was carrot in there. Your choice.
30ml of orange juice, mix in with grated carrot first.
175g caster sugar
175g plain flour or 175g self raising if you like a lighter bake
3 eggs
175g oil
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp cinnamon & 1/2 tsp of nutmeg (grated from fresh is my favourite) or 3 tsp of the pumpkin pie spice mix
For the cream cheese frosting
100g salted butter plus a little extra for greasing the tins.
200g icing sugar
100g cream cheese
a few drops of vanilla extract.
any decorations. These little golden sprinkle things worked quite nicely!
Method
Preheat oven to 180c/ 160c fan/ Gas Mark 4
Line two sponge tins with baking parchment using a little of the butter.
Grate or blend the carrot and mix with orange juice and set aside.
Mix together your wet ingredients (eggs & oil) in a big bowl with a spoon.
Add the carrot and orange juice.
Mix in the sugar
Sift into the wet ingredients, the flour with the bicarbonate of soda and then fold in the spices until it’s really well combined. This is a very wet mix!
Separate into the two tins making sure they are roughly equal in weight.
Cook for approx 40 minutes.
Take out and allow to cool. After about 10 mins pop onto a cooling rack and remove paper slowly. You want the sponges cooled completely before adding the cream cheese frosting.
For the frosting;
Mix butter on high for 3-5 minutes until it turns from yellow to white.
Add icing sugar and mix again
Add vanilla and cream cheese and mix for another 3-5 minutes.
Apply a layer to the middle and then the top, using a palette knife to make smooth.
Store in a cool area to stop the cream cheese from melting and eat within a couple of days!
