Carrot Cake with Walnuts
Carrot Cake with Walnuts & Cream Cheese Frosting
Carrot cake is a favourite amongst many of us and even better served with a cup of tea. This cake would be the perfect bake for a celebration or weekend treat to share with family and friends. The sponge is moist with grated carrots, orange zest and raisins giving extra flavour and natural sweetness. The chopped walnuts add texture with a soft crunch in each bite. The cream cheese frosting has been made using dairy free ingredients and definitely not flavour free! For an extra special appearance, the cake is dressed with dark chocolate shards, fresh orange peel and crumbled walnut pieces.
Carrot Cake with Walnuts
Equipment
- 2 x 20cm Sandwich Tins
- Greaseproof Paper
- Grater
Ingredients
- 250g Carrots peeled and finely grated
- 100g Walnuts roughly chopped (save a teaspoon for garnishing)
- 120g Raisins
- 400g Plain Flour
- 2 tsp Baking Powder
- 200g Light Brown Sugar
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
- 400 ml Soya Milk
- 160 ml Vegetable Oil
- 2 Oranges 1 zested and the other peeled.
- 25g Dark Chocolate finely chopped
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 170g Dairy Free Cream Cheese
- 345g Icing Sugar
- 75g Vegan Block Butter
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C and line two 20cm sandwich tins with baking paper.
- Add the grated carrot, chopped walnuts, raisins and orange zest to a bowl. Then add the flour, baking powder, sugar and cinnamon to a large bowl.
- Mix the soya milk and oil in a jug then pour the liquid into the large bowl with the flour mixture. Stir this until smooth before folding in the carrot, raisin and walnut mixture.
- Divide the batter between the two tins. Tap gently on the kitchen surface once or twice before placing in the centre of the preheated oven.
- Bake for 35 minutes then check a skewer comes out clear, you may need to cook for a further 5 minutes or so if it doesn’t come out clear. Once baked, remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tins on a wire rack for 10 minutes before taking them out of the tins to let them cool completely.
- To make the cream cheese frosting, whisk together the butter and cream cheese before sifting the icing sugar through and mixing. You can refrigerate this until you’re ready to ice your cake.
- Once the cakes have cooled, cut them both in half horizontally then spread your cream cheese frosting over each half, finishing with the the top. Finely slice a couple of pieces of the orange peel then you can decorate the cake with the peel, chopped dark chocolate and reserved walnut pieces crumbled over.
- This cake is best served fresh however if you have any leftover it’ll keep for up to 3 days in an airtight container in the fridge.
MORE RECIPE IDEAS
You can find more tasty food ideas on my blog Cook Shoot and Share. For a twist check out this Chai Spiced Carrot Cake Traybake. You can also take check out my Instagram too where you can keep up to date with recipes I make