Easy Carrot Cake Tray Bake

I've just been dicking about with carrot cake recipes, and this is the one I've settled on that is easy and I like, so I am jotting it down here before it gets away.

Notes before we start:

You don't have to be too anal about the carrots (please, stop). A little too much won't hurt the recipe.

I use my stand mixer, because I love it, but it's easy enough to adjust this recipe to "mixing everything by hand like a peasant".

The spice blend is fairly flexible, so you can muck about with the amounts according to your taste and your cupboard.

Info:

• Oven temp: 180 degrees C (160 for fan ovens)
• Baking time: 35-45 mins
• Prep time: probably 10-15 mins ish
• Serves: 16, orrrr (and stay with me) 1 greedy person 16 times

• Dietary stuff: it's vegetarian...? Absolutely PACKED with butter and sugar, so if you're watching your calorie or fat intake, this is not for you.

Ingredients:

For the Sponge

• 280g normal sugar (white granulated)
• 100g light soft brown sugar
• 40g dark soft brown sugar (or muscovado sugar)
• 350g butter (softened and cubed)
• 4 medium eggs
• 150g grated carrot (that's about 3 medium carrots)
• 400g plain self-raising flour (instead of wholemeal)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Spice mix:

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground nutmeg

½ ground ginger

1 tsp ground allspice

(OR chuck in 2 tsp mixed spice if you have it.)

Optional:

• Pinch of ground cloves, if you have any
• Walnuts, to decorate

For the Frosting

• 500g icing sugar
• 200g full-fat cream cheese
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 75g chopped walnuts (optional, for topping)

Method

The Sponge

• Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan) and grease a suitable receptacle for your Goop. A 30 x 23cm tin is perfect.
• Making the batter is pretty standard if you are at all familiar with cake-making: Beat butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. My lovely mixer does this for me. The butter should be softened, but not melted.
• Leave your mixer whirring away, add the eggs one at a time, and then the vanilla. Pause to scrape down the sides as needed.
• You might want to switch attachments at this point, or hoik it off the mixer and fold in the flour and spice by hand. I let my mixer do all the work, and keep adding the flour steadily, a big spoonful at a time.
• Last but not least: stir in all that grated carrot. I leave the mixer to do that as well, adding in a handful or so of snowman's noses at a time.
• Scrape the lot into the tin, give it a gentle thwack on the work surface if needed to level the top, and wang that beauty in the oven.
• Bake for 35–45 minutes until firm in the centre. Cool in the tin briefly, then transfer to wire rack.

The Frosting

You hardly need this spelling out, I shouldn't think, but here we go:

• Once your cake is in the oven, caking away, scrub out your mixer so it is sparkling and new, and then beat the absolute toss out of the cream cheese, icing sugar, and vanilla until smooth and creamy.
• Stick this in the fridge to chill until you are ready to frost the cake. This part is important, I think, it can be a bit runny when unchilled.
• Spread generously over the completely cooled cake.
• Get your nuts on there, if that's your thing.

Other notes and substitutions:

Spice: I am not fond of cinnamon, so I put less of that and more of other stuff, but your mileage may vary. If you have "mixed spice", you can just chuck in a couple of teaspoons of that. As long as you have the right spices, you can muck about with the amounts a bit *as long as it totals about 2tsps*.

Sugar: You can prat about with the different sugars if you want. If you really can't be arsed, you can just use 420g granulated sugar, but I think you can definitely tell in terms of the look and flavour of the cake.

Flour: You can use wholemeal self raising (the amount stays the same). This actually works really well, but who the hell has that lying around?

Smaller versions: You can halve the recipe and bake it in a brownie pan, and bring down the baking time to 25-30 minutes. If your oven is fan assisted, or if you're using a dark metal tin, I would personally break the cardinal rule and check on it after a scant 25 minutes. I am currently messing around with muffin versions of this, so we'll see how that goes.

Storage: It keeps pretty well in an airtight container. It's worth putting in fridge if your kitchen is hot. I don't think of this as a summer bake, though - with the spicing and stodginess it's definitely Autumnal. We ate it last night after a Easy Chicken Casserole (next up), and I haven't been that happy from a culinary perspective, in ages. This cake also freezes alright, unfrosted, as long as you wrap it well. I found this out because I didn't have enough icing sugar (whoops).

Enjoy!

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Thanks for reading!

My unofficial dollar challenge ends tomorrow! I'd love for you to give it a go: