Carrot Cake with Orange Cream Cheese Icing
This basic carrot cake flavoured with orange is easy to prepare in a couple of bowls. If you like, add a handful of chopped walnuts or pumpkin seeds to the batter along with the carrots.
Ingredients
1½ cups plain flour
1½ tsp baking powder
1½ tsp baking soda
1½ tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
grating of nutmeg
1¼ cups brown sugar
3 large eggs
grated zest of 1 orange
¾ cup sunflower oil
3 cups grated carrot (approx. 3 medium carrots)
Orange cream cheese icing:
½ cup cream cheese
25g butter
2 Tbsp orange juice
2 cups icing sugar
Method
Preheat the oven to 170°C. Line the base of a 20cm round tin with baking paper, and grease or spray with oil
Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg into a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the brown sugar and eggs until well combined then add the orange zest and sunflower oil. Fold through the dry ingredients to combine, then add and fold through the carrots
Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 45-50 mins. Cool before icing
For the Icing:Use a stick blender or food processor to combine all ingredients until smooth, if the icing is still a little wet then add a little more icing sugar
Swap it out:Any of the spices can be left out. If you don’t have any caster or white sugar, you can use brown sugar. Use lemon zest instead of orange zest in the cake. Or use lemon juice or water if you don’t have orange juice. If you don’t have cream cheese, try mascarpone or sour cream with some extra icing sugar