Carrot Cake

I've been craving carrot cake for some time now, but I've never gotten around to making it simply because I've been too lazy to actually grate the carrots. I know I'm awful but this week I stopped procrastinating, dug through my cupboards, grabbed my grater and grated those carrots for this cake, and the end results were quite satisfying. I got the recipe from one of my books, Cooking: A Commonsense Guide, edited by Jane Price and Justine Upex. I guess this is the North American/European version of carrot cake because in Brazil it's made differently, where the carrots are pureed rather than grated. The carrot cake turned out pretty good. Changes that I made are in italics. Happy Baking!

~Ann

Carrot Cake

3 Eggs

1 cup (250ml) oil

1 1/4 cups (230g) soft brown sugar (I did not have any brown sugar...well I did but it was completely hard so I used white sugar instead.)

1 1/2 cups self-raising flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

3/4 cup chopped pecans (I used 3/4 cup of raisins instead)

1 2/3 cups grated carrot (I don't know how many carrots this yields, but I would advise you to start with two big carrots. I grated three and it was way too much.)

125 g (4 oz) cream cheese, softened

30 g (1 oz) butter

1 cup icing sugar

2 teaspoons orange juice

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 180C (350F). Grease a deep 23 cm (9 inch) square cake tin and line the base and sides with baking paper.

2. Combine the eggs, oil and brown sugar in a large bowl. Add the sifted flour, soda, salt and cinnamon, and beat with electric beaters until the mixture is smooth. Add the nuts (or raisins) and carrot and stir well.

3. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 45 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre of the cake. Leave for at least 20 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.

4. To make a cream cheese topping, put the cream cheese, butter, sugar and orange juice in a bowl and beat together until the mixture is spreadable. Spread over the cake and if you would like sprinkle some extra pecans on top.