My Signature Carrot Cake with Orange Cream Cheese Icing

 My Signature Carrot Cake with Orange Cream Cheese Icing

Okay, I’m going to let you all in on a secret....shhh don’t tell everybody else though. This is so good you’ll want to keep it as your own family secret. 

Seriously though, this is actually my favourite cake. But it’s also my mam’s all time favourite cake and mother defo knows best in this case. You can keep your chocolate fudge cake and Victoria sponges! This baby has converted carrot cake haters and brought flavourful joy to many of my friends and family at birthdays and parties. 

This bad boy is nut-free and can be dressed up to make an amazing celebration cake, without any of that sugary armour-like rolled out royal icing. I used this recipe to make a large tiered ‘naked’ cake for my mam’s 60th birthday party. It was enormous! And literally everyone went back for seconds including those aforementioned carrot cake haters. Zero leftovers! 

It is ALWAYS moist but beautifully buttery as well. My secret? Where a traditional carrot cake uses oil in place of butter or margarine, I use half oil and half proper butter - you get the moist texture from the oil and the gorgeous rich flavour from butter. 

My other twist is that where other recipes use walnuts which I find dry, bitter and stony in the sponge, I soak sultanas in fresh orange juice and zest to add little juicy flavour bombs throughout the cake. 

So have I convinced you yet, that this cake will change your life? 

Shall we begin?

INGREDIENTS:

For the sponge:

225g light muscovado sugar 125ml sunflower oil 

125g softened butter

4 large eggs 

1tsp vanilla extract 

300g self-raising flour 

2tsp baking powder 

1tsp ground cinnamon 

0.5tsp fresh grated nutmeg 

1tsp ground mixed spice

200g carrots, peeled and coarsely grated, tossed with 2tbsp of the flour

75g Sultanas 

Zest and juice of a large orange 

For the Icing:

40g butter (room temperature) 

500g icing sugar 

180g full-fat cream cheese (room temperature)

1tsp vanilla extract 

Zest of a large orange plus a little of the juice (varies depending on texture you want)

METHOD:

1. Put the Sultanas in a bowl and add the orange juice and zest and leave to soak for a minimum of an hour but overnight is best. 
2. Preheat the oven to 180*C/160*C fan. And line and grease two 8 inch sandwich tins. 
3. Put a couple of tablespoons of the flour in a bowl with the grated carrots and stir up till they’re all coated in a little flour. TIP: This helps to stop the carrots from sinking to the bottom of the mixture in the oven. It also works for recipes using things like blueberries or chocolate chips etc. 
4. Cream the butter and sugar together till fluffy and paler. (It won’t be super fluffy as there’s less butter than you’d normally use for a creamed method. But you just need to beat it till the sugar is starting to dissolve and it’s a bit airier.)
5. Then beat in the oil, and once blended, add the eggs and vanilla and beat in. 
6. Sift in the flour, baking powder and spices and gently stir together. Don’t overmix or you’ll develop the gluten in the flour and end up with a rubbery cake. 
7. Add the carrots, Sultanas and zest plus any of the juice that didn’t soak into the fruit. 
8. Gently mix till fully combined, again taking care not to overmix. 
9. Divide the mixture between the sandwich tins and level off making a small dip in the centre to counteract how the cake will naturally rise more in the middle when it’s in the oven.
10. Bake for 35-40 mins until they’re risen and a skewer or cake tester comes out clean when inserted into the centre. 
11. Set aside to cook fully on a wire rack. 
12. For the icing, beat the butter and cream cheese together with the orange zest and vanilla till smooth. 
13. Add the icing sugar and beat in till smooth. TIP: start your mixer/whisk off on its lowest setting and drape a clean tea towel over the bowl and whisk/mixer to try and contain the icing sugar cloud that will inevitably be thrown up into the air. Otherwise you’ll wind up breathing in a lovely sugary fog. 
14. Depending on how thick or runny your icing is, add a few drops of orange juice. Be really careful not to add too much liquid or you’ll end up with a lovely orange cream cheese soup. 
15. Use the icing to sandwich the fully cooled sponges together and then cover the top and sides with the icing using a palette knife. 
16. Decoration ideas: a) ribbons of candied carrot (boiled in sugar syrup) rolled into rosettes, b) sugar craft mini carrots, c) fresh flowers with the stems wrapped in tin foil.