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Carrot Cake

I was in the mood for baking this morning and searched the internet for a carrot cake recipe. I found this one and made it in under and hour. Shame it didn't last that long as it was eaten before it had time to cool properly! I took some round to my friend Paula and we ate it with a cup of tea sitting in her garden catching-up.

Fool proof recipe as I have never attempted to make carrot cake before and it was really nice. I missed out the icing for my first one but will try that next time.

Ingredients
175g light muscovado sugar (I used normal brown sugar!)
175ml sunflower oil
3 large eggs , lightly beaten
140g grated carrots (about 3 medium)
100g raisins
grated zest of 1 large orange
175g self-raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon (I used mixed all spice instead of cinnamon and nutmeg)
½ tsp grated nutmeg

FOR THE FROSTING
175g icing sugar
1½-2 tbsp orange juice

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4/fan 160C. Oil and line the base and sides of an 18cm square cake tin with baking parchment.

Tip the sugar into a large mixing bowl, pour in the oil and add the eggs. Lightly mix with a wooden spoon. Stir in the grated carrots, raisins and orange rind.

Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices, then sift into the bowl. Lightly mix all the ingredients - when everything is evenly mixed stop mixing. The mixture will be fairly soft and almost runny.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40- 45 minutes, until it feels firm and springy when you press it in the centre. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn it out, peel off the paper and cool on a wire rack. (You can freeze the cake at this point.) I forgot to use the paper and it didn't stick too much!

Beat together the frosting ingredients in a small bowl until smooth - about as runny as single cream. Put the cake on a plate and drizzle the icing back and forth in diagonal lines over the top, letting it drip down the sides. Yummy!

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