A Carrot Cake, too 'carroty' for rabbits.

Carrot Cake.  A wee bit of planning and effort, but not too much.  Relatively easy to make and guaranteed to impress.  Add a glass of bubbly and you're in like Flynn, or Flynnetta.

It's a Carrot Cake - It's meant to taste good, not look pretty.  I don't do pretty, you can't eat pretty.

Read this recipe right through BEFORE attempting it.

You will need 2 x 9inch loose bottomed cake tins, lightly greased with butter and the bottoms lined with greaseproof paper.

For the Cake.

• 400g of plain flour
• 1 tbsp of baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp of cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp of allspice
• 1/2 tsp of mixed spice
• 100g of soft brown sugar
• 100g of dark brown sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 200ml of vegetable oil
• 100g of carrot puree (boil carrots until soft and then blitz in a mini blender or mash through a sieve)
• 250g of coarsely grated carrot
• 100g of raisins or sultanas (I like to soak mine overnight in some brandy or rum or..)
• 150g of coarsely chopped walnuts (or pecans)  Save 50g for topping the cake
• 100g of flaked almonds  Save 50g for topping the cake
• 75g of dessicated coconut
• 100g of chopped pineapple (rings or chunks, squeezed to get rid of a lot of the excess juice)
• Zest of an orange, some chopped candied orange peel or a tsp of good quality orange extract.  Whatever you have

For the Frosting/Icing/Covering and filling.

• 150g of unsalted butter at room temperature.  Hopefully your room is warm as the butter needs to be soft.
• 60g of icing sugar
• 300g of cream cheese
• 1tsp cinnamon
• 1tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180deg C or 160deg C for a fan oven.

1.  Put the sugars, eggs and vegetable oil into a large bowl and whisk until well mixed and sugar is mostly dissolved (at least no lumps).  Don't even think about using a hand whisk - use an electric beater. Start slow and then increase the speed as you get things mixing.
2.  Add the flour, baking powder, salt and spices to the sugar mixture and mix well until all incorporated.
3.  Add all the rest of the cake ingredients and mix well.
4.  Divide the mixture equally between the 2 prepared cake tins.
5.  Put both tins into the oven on the same shelf.  And if now is the time that you are cursing me because your oven is too wee - not my fault, you should have read the recipe through like I told you at the beginning.
6.  Bake for about 30 minutes or until cakes show signs of shrinking away from the edges of the tins and a toothpick comes out clean.  Yes, the old 'toothpick' trick, again.
7.  Remove cakes from oven and leave to cool slightly in the tins for about 10 minutes, then remove them with the loose bottoms and slide them onto a wire rack to cool further.  After a wee while, slide the cakes off the cake tin bottoms onto the wire rack to cool completely.  When fully cold (and not before), remove the greaseproof paper from the bottom of the cakes.
8.  While cakes are cooling, make the frosting.  Beat the butter and sugar together until smooth.
9.  Add the cream cheese and beat into butter mixture.  Make sure it is very smooth.
10.  Add the cinnamon and vanilla extract and mix them in well.  Leave in the fridge to firm up for a wee while.
11.  When the cakes are cold, top one of them with about half of the frosting, spread evenly across the cake.  Place the other half on top and cover the top of that one with the rest of the frosting, again spread evenly right to the edges.  Top the cake with the remaining nuts.  You DID remember to save 50g of each of the nuts like I told you to?
12.  Make a good cup of coffee, cut a slice of cake and take a break.  While you are relaxing, start planning who you will seduce into bed with this cake.  Probably the best cake in the world.  Oh wait a minute,for that to be true it might need a bit more alcohol in it next next time.

ENJOY!

Serving Suggestion :-)