One bowl carrot cake
The story
Ingredients
Method
This cake gives me such happy memories of my Dad, who died in August this year. It was always his favourite cake and the one I made for his birthday every year for as long as I can remember (mainly because it all goes in the same bowl!). He ordered it almost every time we went out for coffee or had picnics – I’ve lost count of the number of times we were sat in the car in the pouring rain on family holidays where Dad would produce a ‘here’s one I made earlier’ carrot cake. It brought a certain comfort, and after eating it we were ready for whatever the weather had in store.
Dad no longer being here to share those memories with in person is still something I’m really struggling to accept. But I’ll keep making it for his birthday or ‘just because’, as it always starts a conversation about Dad and gives another opportunity to talk about those special times we had together.
Ellie Wagstaff is Marie Curie's Policy and Public Affairs Manager for Scotland
- 250 ml sunflower oil
- 4 large eggs
- 225 g light muscovado sugar
- 200 g carrots, peeled and grated
- 300 g self-raising flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp ground mixed spice
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- Zest of 1 orange
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 75 g walnuts, shelled and chopped, plus 8 halves to decorate
For the icing
- 50 g butter (room temperature)
- 25 g icing sugar
- 250 g full-fat cream cheese (room temperature)
- 3 drops of vanilla extract
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (fan 160°C/350°F/Gas 4). Grease two deep 20cm (8in) round sandwich tins and line the bases of the cake tins with baking parchment.
- In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients for the cake mixture as shown below. Spoon the mixture evenly between the tins.
- Put the cakes in the oven and bake for about 35 minutes, or until golden brown, risen. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
- Make the icing: measure the butter, icing sugar, cream cheese, and vanilla extract into a bowl and whisk using a hand or electric whisk until smooth and thoroughly blended.
- Spread half the icing on one cake, sit the other cake on top, and spread the remaining icing on top. Decorate the top of the cake with the halved walnuts.