Carrot Cake!

Delicious and moist carrot cake, decorated with a lovely light vanilla buttercream and nuts!

Carrot cake

I love carrot cake. When I was little, I despised it because who on earth would want vegetables in a cake?! Little me was obviously wrong as it is DELICIOUS.

I posted my recipe for my carrot & walnut cupcakes a while ago and they’ve been a massive hit – they’re a big reader favourite as they’re so light and flavoursome and yumyumyum.

Recipe

I love this recipe as it has delicious spices from the flavours of mixed spice, cinnamon and ginger – I love this combination because it suits the light moistness of the carrot cake so well, but doesn’t over power it.

I was asked on my Facebook page for a whole carrot cake recipe as sometimes people don’t like transferring a cupcake recipe to a cake as they don’t know the baking times, or how much it’ll actually make – this led me to this beauty.

Buttercream Frosting

I decorate mine with either cream cheese frosting or vanilla buttercream – as this one was made as a request from my friend, we went with the buttercream! The vanilla from the buttercream gives it a delightful sweetness that I think is a cakey marriage made in heaven!

You can obviously use cream cheese frosting, I like to switch it up now and again. My carrot loaf cake has a cream cheese frosting and it is DELICIOUS! I quite like that cream cheese frosting doesn’t necessarily go with every cake so when you do have it, its not boring and always tastes amazing!

Decoration

I decorated my carrot cake with some small carrot toppers and a nice sprinkles of walnuts! You can of course leave the nuts off if you would prefer but I personally  love the texture the walnuts give a carrot cake. 

As with every bake, the decoration is optional and can be left if preferred or even scaled up a notch! You can add sprinkles instead of/as well as walnuts or you can top with dried fruit instead – the choice is yours! ENJOY!

Carrot Cake

Delicious and moist carrot cake, decorated with a lovely light vanilla buttercream and nuts!

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Category: Cake

Type: Cake

Keyword: Carrot

Prep Time: 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 35 minutes minutes

Cooling and Decorating Time: 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Total Time: 2 hours hours 25 minutes minutes

Servings: 12 slices

Author: Jane's Patisserie

Ingredients

Cake

• 225 ml sunflower oil
• 5 medium eggs
• 275 g light brown sugar
• 300 g grated carrots
• 100 g raisins optional
• Zest of 1 orange
• 275 g self raising flour
• 1.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 100 g walnuts/chopped pecans optional

Buttercream/Decoration

• 250 g unsalted butter room temperature
• 500 g icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 - 3 tbsp boiling water
• Chopped nuts
• Carrot shapes/sprinkles

Instructions

• Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan
• Grease & line two 8" cake tins with parchment paper
• Pour the sunflower oil and eggs into a large bowl and add the light brown sugar
• Mix lightly and combine
• Add the grated carrots and raisins (if using) and orange zest and fold through to combine
• Add the self raising flour, bicarbonate of soda, mixed spice, ginger, and cinnamon and mix again - try not to over mix!
• Once combined, fold through the nuts (if using) and pour into the prepared tins
• Bake the cakes in the oven for 30-35 minutes until cooked through (test with a cake tester, should be clean!)
• Leave to cool in the tin

Buttercream

• Beat the unsalted butter for a couple of minutes so its very smooth in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment
• Gradually add the icing sugar until all combined and beat on a high speed for a couple of minutes
• Once mixed, add the vanilla extract and mix again
• Whilst mixing, gradually add the boiling water until you reach your desired consistency
• Beat for another 5 minutes so its super light and fluffy
• Place one of your sponges onto the plate you're using, spread half of the buttercream on top, add the other sponge, and spread the rest of the buttercream on
• Decorate to your desire
• ENJOY!

Notes

• I prefer my carrot cake with just buttercream in-between and on top of the layers, but there is enough buttercream to spread it around the edges slightly too.
• You don't have to include the nuts, or the raisins, but I would recommend using at least one of them as the flavour is so delicious!
• This cake will last 4 days covered at room temperature!
• I used this tin!
• I used this piping bag!
• I used this piping tip!

ENJOY!

Find my other recipes on my Recipes Page!

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J x

© Jane’s Patisserie. All images & content are copyright protected. Do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to republish this recipe, please re-write the recipe in your own words and credit me, or link back to this post for the recipe