A Little Carrot Cake

Pah, after all my screw-ups with Reader and Bloglovin’ this week, dear readers, you deserve a decent recipe. So hooray for this latest acquisition into carrot cake territory!

Originally I had grand plans. I was going to make a wonderful cake, and it would be stunningly cheap at under £1. However, I really failed at being economical. Gotta say, those free-range eggs aren’t cheap.

Fortunately, in the process, I discovered this dreamy cake recipe along the way!

First, I’ve got a confession to make. I previously tested out a bunch of carrot cake recipes to find the perfect one, and I thought I’d got that nailed. But hmmm, now I’m not so sure which one deserves the crown. But take it from me, both of these recipes are yummilicious in their own way. This one has no nuts, and proportionally less sugar, and more carrot – so the allergy-suffers, nut-haters, and ones pretending carrot-cake-is-one-portion-of-daily-veg may prefer this recipe.

This is not a dense, heavy slab of cake that you could throw as a weapon. It’s light, fluffy, and full of bright flavours. I tested out both milk and yoghurt, and yoghurt definitely won for texture. There’s just a hint of cinnamon to let the other flavours jump in the limelight too, and I’ve topped it with my favourite mascarpone cheese for some zesty goodness.

A Little Carrot Cake

Adapted from Sally’s Baking Addiction

Serves 6

For the cake:

• 133g light brown sugar
• 120ml vegetable oil
• 40ml yoghurt
• 2 eggs
• 166g self-raising flour
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 carrot, finely grated

For the icing:

• 150g mascarpone cheese
• 30g icing sugar, sifted
• zest and juice of 1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 180˚C. Grease and line a 15cm cake tin. Sift the flour, cinnamon sugar, and salt together. In a jug, mix together vegetable oil, yoghurt, and eggs. Pour the liquid ingredients into the flour, and fold together, along with the grated carrots, just until no trace of flour is left. Pour the mixture into the cake tin, and bake for 40-50 minutes until springy and a knife inserted comes back clean. Unmould the cake from the tin, and pop onto a cooling rack to cool.

Trim the top of the cake flat with a sharp knife. Mix the mascarpone cheese together with the icing sugar and lemon zest until smooth, then add enough lemon juice to loosen the icing to piping consistency. Pipe onto the top of the cake in a swirl, then use a palette knife to smooth it out.