Cooking with Abel & Cole: Carrots

Tissues at the ready. This is my final post in my Abel & Cole series.

In my salad box, there was a bunch of carrots. Now, all my friends and family know I love a good cake. So, instead of creating something savoury, I decided to make a delicious carrot cake. 

You will need

175g light muscovado sugar

175ml sunflower oil

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

140g grated carrots (about 3 medium)

grated zest of 1 large orange

175g self-raising flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4/fan 160C. Oil and line the bases of two round cake tins with baking parchment. 

Grate your carrots. This is the most annoying part of the recipe so, if there's some spare hands in the house, get them involved as well.

Tip the sugar into a large mixing bowl, pour in the oil and add the eggs. Lightly mix with a wooden spoon. Stir in the grated carrots and orange rind.

Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices, then sift into the bowl. Lightly mix all the ingredients - when everything is mixed in, stop! The mixture will be fairly soft and almost runny.

Mix in the grated carrot.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tins and bake for 40- 45 minutes, until it feels firm and springy.

Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then tip them out, peel off the paper and cool on a wire rack.

Now, this is where I do a bit of 'cheating' although, I don't really like calling it that. To be honest, Mrs Crocker is always going to be the winner when it comes to frosting.

Spread a thin layer of the frosting on each cake and, sandwich together. Then frost the top. 

Goes very well with a nice hot cuppa.