Carrot Cake with Chocolate Icing

 "Mum! Give me another carrot!" 

Carrot, 1984 Prints by Sophie Grandval

It all started with Milou's love of carrots. We began to buy carrots almost every other day. She devoured each one with such happiness that I'd never seen before. If you love carrots, I thought, you must love a carrot cake with chocolate icing too. The assumption soon led me to the kitchen and I ended up with a fabulous carrot cake. Here goes the recipe which requires nothing special but the ordinary ingredients you have in the fridge and drawers in your kitchen. 

Well, the inference I made turned out to be true. Not only Milou but seven more people (the colleagues in the office) enjoyed the cake to the full. The only addition to the next one will be more carrots and other spices such as ground ginger or nutmeg to make the cake even better!

If you love carrots, you love a carrot cake too.

 

Ingredients

 

For the cake

3 medium eggs, at room temperature

150 g caster sugar

150 ml sunflower oil, plus a little extra for the tin

150 ml milk, at room temperature

150g carrots, finely grated

100g walnuts, chopped finely

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

200g all-purpose flour (add more if the batter is too runny)

1tablespoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon fine salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 

For the Icing
100 g plain chocolate
100 ml double cream

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.

2. Grease and line a round cake tin with baking parchment.

3. Break the eggs into a bowl. Add the sugar and whisk until creamy.

4. Add the vegetable oil and milk and whisk again.

5. Stir in the grated carrots, chopped walnuts and the vanilla extract.

6. In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.

7. Add the wet carrot mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well to combine, making sure there are no pockets of flour.

8. Spoon the cake batter into the lined tin and bake on the middle shelf for 45 minutes until the cake has risen and is golden-brown all over or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

9. Remove the cake from the oven and set aside in the tin to cool for 15 minutes, then turn the cake out and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

10. While the cake cools, make the icing.   

The Icing

Chop the chocolate. Heat the chocolate and cream in a saucepan over low heat until the chocolate melts. Do not boil. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk the mixture until smooth, glossy and thickened. Set aside to cool for 1-2 hours, or until thick enough to spread over the cake.

11. Spread the icing over the cake.  

 

If you like more chocolate icing, double the amounts for both the chocolate and the heavy cream.