Is there anything more comforting than spiced carrot & walnut cake with cream cheese frosting? It’s been a cake that I’ve been baking for many years, with a recipe I found along the way and shoved into my personal recipe collection. Where it hails from exactly, I’m not entirely sure anymore sorry, but I thought I would share it with you to enjoy for yourself 🙂
Note that I have split the recipe into separate ones, in case you’re short on time and wanted to get the ready-made cream cheese icing from the supermarket instead of making it for yourself.
Carrot & Walnut Cake
Equipment
- Electric scales
- Mixing bowl
- Sieve
- Electric mixer
- Offset spatula
- 6" cake tin
- Cake wrap (if using)
Ingredients
- 2 medium carrots finely grated
- 65 g walnuts crumbled (optional). Extra for decoration.
- 2 large eggs
- 225 g caster sugar
- 120 ml vegetable oil
- 0.5 tsp vanilla extract
- 125 g plain flour
- 1 tsp baking/bi-carb soda
- 0.5 tsp mixed spice
Instructions
- Before you begin, make sure your eggs are at room temperature. When ready, pre-heat your oven to 150 degrees fan-forced. Soak cake wrap (if using). Grease and line the 6" round cake tin.
- Set aside the carrots and walnuts. Sieve the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl, and place the remaining ingredients in as well. Beat on low speed until smooth (do not overmix).
- Using the spatula, mix in the carrot and walnuts. Pour the batter into your cake tin, and bang the tin on the counter a few times to remove any air bubbles. Place on soaked cake wrap if using.
- Bake the cake for approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes. If using a darker coloured tin and no cake wrap, expect the cooking time to be less and perhaps start checking closer to the 1-1:15 mark. To test for doneness, insert a wooden skewer into the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean, it is cooked.
- Take the cake out of the oven and allow it to rest in the tin for 15 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool. The cake bakes to 5cm (2") high.
Notes
- Baking time varies depending on tin, oven and if cake wrap was used. Here I have used a Mondo cake tin with soaked cake wrap in an electric fan-forced oven.
Orange & Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting
Equipment
- Electric scales
- Sieve
- Mixing bowl
- Spatula
- Electric mixer
Ingredients
- 250 g cream cheese softened
- 125 g butter softened
- 375 g pure icing sugar sieved
- 2 tsp orange rind zested
- 2 tsp ground ginger
Instructions
- Soften the cream cheese 1 hour out of the fridge before commencing, and soften the butter also.
- Beat the butter on medium speed for 3 minutes until creamy. Add in the softened cream cheese and sieved icing sugar, and beat on low-medium speed for a further 1-2 minutes until it has come together. Be careful not to overbeat or the frosting will become too soft.
- Stir in the grated orange zest and ground ginger.
Notes
- this recipe is enough to fill and cover a 6" cake
- you can make classic lemon cream cheese frosting by substituting the orange zest with lemon zest, and omitting the ground ginger
For those wondering about the assembly aspect, I torte my 5cm (2″) cakes in half using a cake leveler (pictured below), and remove any ‘dome’ off the cake. That way, I get 2x 2.5cm (1″) layers per baked cake. This recipe is for one baked cake, therefore only 2 layers. However, for customer orders, I would double it and bake 2 cakes, so they can be torted to 4 layers and result in standard tier height. The above frosting recipe would be enough to fill and cover a standard 6″ tier with 4 layers.