When making a carrot cake you basically cannot go wrong, you will make it all in one big bowl and then pour it into a tin and bake it. You can bake it in a loaf tin if you like and put a little bit of icing on top as well because the flavour of a carrot cake is so amazing and you do not want to hide it with a lot of icing. So in a bowl add in your sunflower oil you can use vegetable oil as well, do not use olive oil because it has a little bit strong taste and you do not want to pull away from other flavours.

So to the oil add in your light brown and custard sugar and use a whisk to stir together until fully combined then add in your eggs one at a time and mix well until it is well combined. You can crack your eggs in a separate bowl before adding them so as not to get the eggshells in the mixture. Get your plain flour in a bowl and add in bicarbonate and baking soda they are both going in the plain flour. Add in a pinch of salt and cinnamon as well then mix them together and then add them in two half into the egg mixture.

Get rid of the wire whisk replace it with a spatula and fold the flour mixture into the egg mixture using a spatula until it forms a lovely smooth batter then add in your last two ingredients which are the nuts and the carrots. Firstly get your nuts you can get a combination of pecans and walnuts but if you prefer one more than the other just go with it you can use a food processor to chop them up.

Pour them into the batter and fold them again and once all of the nuts are combined add the carrot since it is the most important part of a carrot cake. Do not forget this part grate your carrots into a bowl add them straight into the mix and mix it through using a spatula. Pour the batter into a prepared tin so the batter should just even itself out because it is a wet batter but you might want to give it a little jiggle and it is ready to cook it is going to take a lot of time because it is a big cake put it in the oven for an hour at 160C and test it with a skewer.

Make sure it comes out clean and at any point if you think the top is looking a little bit crusty it is fine get a foil and make a lid for it and it going to bake perfectly. After an hour take the cake out of the oven completely before you can ice it otherwise, it will melt off. If you have time you can leave your carrot cake to the next day to give it a little bit of time to relax and soften and the texture will be much moister. This carrot cake is a cake that improves with age bit like wine but not as long as wine.

Make a little bit of cream cheese just to spread on top of your cake. In a bowl add in your unsalted butter and soft cream cheese using a hand whisk if you have a small amount of icing because it is going to be quite smooth to put in a big mixer. So whip it up for a couple of minutes and get it a little bit fluffy. Once it is looking nice and creamy and a bit fluffy add in your icing sugar a little bit at a time whipping in between and just to finish off add a little bit of salt to cut through the sweetness and you are done.

To ice the cake, put the icing in the middle of the cake to avoid hiding the carrot flavours just to enhance the flavour. So using a piping bag with a petal nozzle fill it up with the cream cheese icing you can put the icing in the fridge and bring it an hour before use. Then ruffle your cake with the cream cheese icing on top. To decorate a bit further use chopped wall-nuts or chopped pecans or maple pecans and just place them on top of the icing. And there you have it a delicious pecan walnut carrot cake complete with cream cheese frosting and the delicious maple pecans.

Ingredients;

For the Carrot Cake:

  • 225 ml/g Sunflower or Vegetable Oil
  • 120g Caster Sugar
  • 120g Light Brown Sugar
  • 3 Eggs
  • 210g Plain Flour
  • 3/4 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
  • 3/4 tsp Baking Powder
  • A pinch of Salt
  • 1.5 tsp Cinnamon
  • 125g Nuts
  • 175g Carrots

For the Cream Cheese Icing:

  • 50g Unsalted Butter
  • 75g Full Fat Cream Cheese
  • 250g Icing Sugar