Carrot Cake

The past two weeks, I have been enjoying watching Donna Hay's cooking show on the cable in bkk; "fast, fresh,simple." by Donna Hay. I have been one of her fans for a while now. However, this is my first time watching her show, and I'm in love with it! Everything she does on TV looks so easy and simple, just like her style. It makes you want to get up and start cooking. After my oven was out of service for quite sometimes now, I'm craving for homemade bake goods.

And of course, for this Easter holiday, why not baking a carrot cake?

After searching for a good carrot cake recipe, I decided to use Donna Hay's Carrot Cake. She didn't disappoint me at all. I'm very much enjoying it. It's so easy to make and turned out to be so delicious and not too sweet and oily. If you are looking for a simple carrot cake that tastes great, try this! I garantee that you will fall in love with her and her recipe, just like me.

Note: the only thing that I adapted from the recipe is using walnuts instead of pecan.



Carrot Cake
Adapted from Donna Hay's

1¼ cups brown sugar
¾ cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
2½ cups grated carrot, lightly packed (squeezed out the juice and discarded)
½ cup chopped walnuts
½ cup raisins

Cream cheese frosting

250g cream cheese, softened
⅓ cup icing sugar, sifted
1½ tablespoons lemon juice

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F). Place the sugar and oil in the bowl and beat for 2–3 minutes. Add the eggs gradually and beat well. Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and ginger over the sugar mixture. Add the carrot, walnuts and raisins and mix until just combined. Pour into a greased 7 or 8 inch round cake tin lined with non-stick baking paper and bake for 40-50 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Cool in tin.

(Note: My baking time is less than what the orignal recipe indicated (55-60 mins). I chilled my cake overnight before spreading the frosting.)

For the cream cheese frosting, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the icing sugar and lemon juice and mix well until smooth. Spread frosting on the cooled cake. Chilled for another couple hours to let the frosting set. Ready to serve.