This simple carrot cake has no secret or special ingredients, except carrots of course, and it’s the most delicious and soft cake you can imagine. Since carrots are so fresh and plentiful these days, there is no better cake to try your hands on than this one, and it is mega simple.

The quantity in the recipe will result in a very large cake that you can easily store outside in an airtight container for a couple of days and it will still be fresh. So let’s get started!

Oh, you will need your mum’s help to handle the oven and baking part, the rest of the mixing for this simple cake you can easily do yourself.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups flour

• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1/2 teaspoon table salt

• 3 cups carrots, peeled and shredded

• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

• 1/2 cup brown sugar

• 4 large eggs

• 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil

Method

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Centigrade. In a nine inch round pan, place butter paper and lightly grease it, or you may skip the butter paper and grease the pan then lightly dust with some flour all over. Set aside.

In a bowl, combine together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; set aside.

In a medium bowl, beat the eggs with either a hand beater or an electric one, until a bit light and foamy. Add in half the granulated sugar and mix, then add the remaining and mix until the sugar dissolves. Add brown sugar and beat, but don’t worry if the brown sugar doesn’t dissolve fully as grainy sugar won’t blend as well as granulated white sugar.

Transfer this egg and sugar mixture into a large bowl and add oil and mix again.

Taking a couple of spoons at a time, add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and mix lightly with a hand or electric beater. After all the dry ingredients are well combined, stir in the grated carrots and combine by hand with a spatula. Don’t over mix.

If you find the mixture too dry at this point, you can add about 1/4 cup of milk. I did because I like my cake to be a bit moist.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick or knife inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean, in about 40 minutes. Reduce the heat to 180-150 degrees at about 25-30 minutes when the top of the cake seems a little firm.

Let the cake cool for about 10 minutes in the pan and then dish it out. You can top with whipped cream or cream cheese frosting but I didn’t as I like to enjoy the original flavour of the carrot cake without any other taste confusing my taste buds.

Published in Dawn, Young World, December 22nd, 2018