Recipe - Carrot Cake

  

Today I am sharing one of my favourite healthier cakes; a carrot cake. It is adapted from the Hemsley + Hemsley book, The Art of Eating Well.

We have been making this cake in our family on repeat as it is so yummy! We recently made it for our son's 6th Birthday party and the family loved it. The candle was £1 from Tiger - find it here: https://tinyurl.com/4fe8wz5a

Usually it's a 2 tier round cake and here is our favourite new cake tin which is great for transporting a taller, round cake plus also doubles up as a nice way to serve and display the cake:. https://tinyurl.com/28fa2pmp It is from Sainsbury's which means you can collect / spend Nectar points on this purchase if you are in the UK :)

but sometimes we make it as a traybake instead - which is easier to transport. You can find the recipe below:

MAKES 1 LARGE CAKE OR TRAYBAKE

INGREDIENTS...

FOR THE CAKE

• 2 tablespoons coconut oil / butter, melted
• 250g ground almonds
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 3/4 teaspoon bicarb
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3 eggs 
• 3.5 tbsp maple syrup
• 300g carrots, grated
• Handful walnuts for decorating

FOR THE FROSTING

• 2 tubs of Philadelphia full fat cream cheese
• 2.5 tbsp maple syrup
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to Fan 180 and line the base of two 23cm diameter cake tins (for a whole cake) or a 20cm x 40cm baking tin (for a traybake). Grease the sides with coconut oil or butter

2. In a large bowl, combine the ground almonds with the salt, bicarb and cinnamon

3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with the maple syrup and melted coconut oil / butter, then stir in the carrots before mixing with the dry ingredients in the large bowl.

4. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin/s, spreading it out evenly, and bake in the oven for 35 mins until springy to the touch and golden brown on top. Remove from oven and place tins on a wire rack to cool

5. While the cakes are cooling, make the frosting. Add the cream cheese to a bowl and mix in the maple syrup and vanilla extract. Leave in fridge until the cake bases have cooled down completely

6. Spread the cooled cakes with the frosting. If making a 2 layered cake, place each frosted layer in the fridge for a few hours, and then stack them on top of each other.

Sprinkle cut up walnuts on the top to decorate.