Carrot Cake with Cream-Cheese Frosting
Serves: 6 to 8
A deliciously moist Carrot Cake with a light and fresh Cream-Cheese Frosting. This carrot cake recipe is sure to become a favourite with your family and friends!
Ingredients
For the cake
- 2 eggs
- 140 ml (½ cup plus 1 tablespoon) vegetable oil
- 200 g (1 ¼ cup) light muscovado sugar, or light brown sugar
- 180 g (1 cup plus 4 tablespoons) plain flour, (all-purpose flour)
- 10 g (2 teaspoons) baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 pinch fine salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated
- ½ teaspoon mixed spice
- 300 g (11 oz) large carrots, about 2, finely grated
- 100 g (⅔ cup) raisins
- 75 g (3 oz) pecans, or walnuts, chopped, optional
For the orange cream-cheese frosting
- 250 g (9 oz) cream cheese, cold
- 50 g (½ stick) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 275 g (2 cups) icing sugar, (powdered sugar), or to taste
- 1 orange, zested, optional
To decorate
- marzipan carrots, or chopped walnuts
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 150°C (300°F) (without fan).
- Grease and line a 13 cm x 23 cm loaf pan (5 x 9 inches).
- In a large bowl, or the bowl of a KitchenAid, beat together the eggs, oil and sugar until it is pale and thick.
- Add the flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, ground cinnamon, nutmeg and mixed spice.
- Mix until well combined.
- Stir through the carrots, raisins and nuts (if using).
- The batter will be quite liquid but don't worry about this.
- Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for about 1 to 1.25 hours, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
- Leave the cake to cool in the pan for about 5 minutes before removing it to a wire rack to cool completely.
- To make the cream-cheese frosting, beat the cream cheese and butter together in a medium bowl. Add the vanilla extract, icing sugar and orange zest and mix to combine. The icing should be quite thick.
- If necessary, you can place the frosting in the fridge for about 10 minutes to firm up.
- Spread the frosting over the cooled cake and serve as is, or decorate with some marzipan carrots. You could also sprinkle over some chopped walnuts.
Kitchen Notes
- RECTANGULAR CAKE PAN
To bake this cake in a 17cm x 25 cm (7 x 10 inches) rectangular baking pan (as shown in the photos), bake for about 55 mins, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. - MAKE IT DAIRY-FREE
This carrot cake recipe is dairy-free. For a dairy-free alternative to the cream-cheese frosting, I recommend making a simple lemon glaze by mixing a few tablespoons of icing sugar (powdered sugar) with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, until you have a runny consistency which you can pour over the cake. - STORAGE TIPS
This cake is best eaten on the same day it is made. Otherwise, due to the cream cheese frosting, keep any leftovers in the fridge or in a cool place. - OVEN TEMPERATURES
All recipes on this website state temperatures for a regular oven (i.e. a conventional oven without fan). If you have a convection oven with a fan, please consult the manufacturer's handbook on how to adjust the temperature and baking time accordingly. - CONVERSIONS
To convert from cups to grams, and vice-versa, please see this handy Conversion Chart for Basic Ingredients.