Monday 10 June 2013

Carrot cake with orange cream cheese frosting


Carrot cake is one of my colleague's favourite cake. I kept promising to make one but I couldn't find my grater so I bought one but was then too busy to make the cake. Anyway, I finally got round to it and she declared this the best carrot cake she's eaten! It's a simple mix all in one recipe which had the right balance of spice, nuts, raisins and carrots. I think the olive oil added to the flavour and smoothness of the cake - I remember using it for an apple cake previously and decided to give it a try here. The icing on the cake (literally) was the orange cream cheese frosting. 

I'm entering this to Tea Time Treats hosted this month by Kate from What Kate Baked and co-hosted by Karen from Lavender and Lovage. The theme this month is layer cakes and this 2 layer cake will do nicely. 


I'm also sending it to Made with Love Mondays hosted by Javelin Warrior as this cake is made from scratch and with plenty of love. 


And finally to Credit Crunch Munch hosted by Anneli from Delicieux this month. The challenge was created by Helen from Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla from Fab Food 4 All. This is a great recipe if you have leftover ingredients to use up as you can vary the fruit and nut mix of the recipe and if you're anything like me, you'll always have a carrot or two in the fridge!




wholemeal flour, olive oil, raisins, muscovado sugar, ground cinnamon, ground mixed spice, orange, cream cheese, pecans, carrots. 

 adding carrots, chopped roasted pecans and raisins to the mix

 ready to go in the oven

 2 layer cake

For the carrot cake
150ml olive oil
150g muscovado sugar 
3 eggs
220g wholemeal flour
1.5 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
zest of 1 orange
100g raisins
250g carrots, peeled and grated
100g pecans, toasted and roughly chopped

For the orange cream cheese frosting
300g cream cheese
50g butter
150g icing sugar
zest of 1 orange
1-2 tablespoons fresh orange juice (depending on consistency of icing requred)

  • Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and line 2 x 18cm sandwich tins. 
  • In a large bowl, whisk the olive oil, sugar and eggs until the sugar has dissolved and the eggs are slightly fluffy. 
  • In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, bicabonate of soda and spices and add to the egg mixture.
  • Add in the remaining ingredients and mix well. 
  • Divide the mixture evenly between 2 tins (I usually weigh them to get even sized cakes)
  • Bake for approximately 25-30 minutes or until the cake springs back from the edge and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 
  • Allow to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before turning out to a wire rack to cool completely. 
  • Meanwhile make the frosting by beating all the ingredients in an electric mixer until smooth.
  • Sandwich the cakes with frosting and spread a thick layer on top of the cake.
  • Decorate with orange zest as shown or pecan nuts. 








17 comments:

  1. I recently made my very first carrot cake (as part of a Tuesday Tutor post) and I was surprised at how easy it was to make! And how delicious... I love the idea of the orange cream cheese frosting - what a terrific pairing...

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    1. Carrot cakes are surprisingly easy to make - I should make them more often!

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  2. what delicious sound a carrot cake with.orange cream frosting; amazing!!

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  3. Oh my god we're like twins!! I just posted a carrot cake too. Yours looks gorgeous Ros and I love the fact that I can tuck into mine whilst reading about yours!!

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    1. Great minds think alike and all that :) Sadly I don't have any cake left to munch on :(

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  4. Great looking carrot cake, haven't tried making it with olive oil and wholemeal flour before. Sounds delicious!

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    1. It was an experiment and it worked really well - delicious and felt healthy too :)

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  5. Lovely cake & looks so good! Love to try this recipe as I love using olive oil in bakes . Thanks for the sharing! ;)

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    1. This is only my second time using olive oil in a cake and it' delicious!

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  6. Mouthwateringly delicious looking :)

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  7. I'm sure you gained LOADS of brownie points with your colleague for bringing in this glorious bake! Thank you for entering TTT!

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  8. I just love a spicy carrot cake and yours looks so pretty. The orange cream cheese frosting is a great idea too. I could certainly manage a large slice or two! Thanks for entering this lovely cake into Credit Crunch Munch x

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    1. Thanks for hosting a fab challenge. I'm on a roll with credit crunch munch this month!

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  9. wow this looks great! thanks for sharing this recipe!

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  10. Gorgeous cake - I think it's the soft sponge with the cream cheese frosting that always makes carrot cake such a joy. Love the addition of orange to the frosting.

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    1. I can't imagine carrot cake without cream cheese frosting! The orange definitely added a nice 'zing' :)

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