Carrot Cake Addiction

I can't remember when I had my 1st carrot cake but I can recall I wasn't that crazy for it, well not until now. My addiction for carrot cake worsens as the days pass, cos seriously what's there not to like about carrot cake? It is moist, packed with carrots, walnuts, cinnamon and of course cream cheese *drools* I used to have a healthy dose of carrot cake as my aunt's maid made them quite frequently but I found her cream cheese frosting way too sweet. I guess that sort of motivated me to make my very own (this was way before I tried those from marmalade pantry, cedele, soup spoon etc.)

Carrot Cake in a Cup

Then I became slightly more independent and richer and paid an average of $6 to try the carrot cakes out there and you would think I'd get sick of carrot cake by now. Nope! On the contrary, I was inspired to develop a recipe for the perfect carrot cake (or rather my perfect carrot cake). To date, I have yet to find one that really wowed me; the carrot cakes I've made are always too moist and dense and this was no exception. However, my family loved it and parents claimed this was the best carrot cake I ever made.

My poor carrot cake fell apart while I was icing the cake

This recipe is adapted from the recipe book Joyce gave me, its a book by Peggy Porschen.

Scrumptious Carrot cake (6 inch):

• 140ml Vegetable oil
• 200g Brown Sugar
• 80ml Beaten eggs
• 80g Walnuts, toasted and finely chopped (I added another 65g for coating)
• 320g Carrots, peels and grated
• 280g Tinned pineapple, drained and crushed
• 290g Plain flour
• 3/4 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
• 3/4 tsp Baking powder
• 3/4 tsp Cinnamon powder
• Pinch of Salt
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 180 C
2. Beat oil and sugar till a smooth consistency
3. Add in beaten eggs gradually till well combine
4. Add in walnuts, carrot, pineapple into the mixture and vanilla extract
5. Sieve in flour, bicarbonate soda, baking powder, cinnamon powder and salt. Fold till well combine
6. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 8 oz Cream cheese
• 125g Butter
• 100g Icing sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 1/2 tsp Lemon extract

Steps:

1. Beat cream cheese till smooth
2. Add butter and cream till smooth
3. Add Icing sugar, vanilla and lemon extract

In my opinion, adding the butter didn't really make a difference in the taste. I would definitely omit the butter the next time round. I would also bake the cake a little longer as I found it too mushy. I think the extra 65g walnuts really made hell lotta difference to this carrot cake, do make sure you toast the walnuts before layering them onto the cake, trust me it makes a world of difference :)

Enjoy :)