Serves 8
A great way to use this season’s carrots is in a cake. This one layer traybake is easy to put together for an Easter treat and will keep for a day or two thanks to the oil.
Ingredients
1 orange, zest and juice
150g caster sugar
2 free range eggs
150ml light and mild olive oil
215g wholemeal flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
250g carrots, grated
125g pecan nuts, broken into pieces
For the icing
150g cream cheese
75g icing sugar
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180°C
- Line a 20cm/8inch square tin with baking paper
- Place the orange zest into a small dish; cover and refrigerate
- Juice the orange into a medium bowl
- Into this bowl add the eggs, oil and sugar and beat until well combined
- Into a separate bowl mix the flour, salt, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon
- Sieve these dry ingredients into the wet. There will be bran left in your sieve from the wholemeal flour so tip this in too and and mix gently
- Fold in the grated carrot and 100g of pecan nuts (reserving 25g to garnish)
- Pour the batter into your lined cake tin and bake for 35 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean; leave to cool
- To make the icing use a fork to mix the cream cheese with the icing sugar until thoroughly combined
- Spread over the cooled cake and garnish with the remaining nuts and orange zest
