Walnut Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I am not  a big fan of carrot cake but my dad likes it very much. Today since I saw two carrots in the fridge untouched for some time, I decided to bake a walnut carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. If you were to google, you could find numerous recipes that are not alike in many ways. Some like a lot spice in their carrot cake while some just play it simple with a hint of cinnamon and the rest make do with nuts only. My recipe uses cinnamon and nutmeg , walnut for the crunch and lots of shredded carrots. 

Since there is only 4 of us at home, I prefer baking cake in my two 6 inch round cake pans. So do double the recipe if you desire a larger cake. Moist cakes are delicious but I love the buttery taste more hence, I used butter for fat replacing the usual vegetable oil bakers normally have in their carrot cake recipes. As for the frosting, I had a little problem with the cream cheese turning quite runny but I managed to fix it by adding some more cream cheese and refrigerating it till it gets a little firm and easy to handle. Just a piece of advice, avoid runny frosting by keeping the cream cheese chilled till a few minutes before you want to use it and do not over-beat. 

The Recipe

Ingredients for the Cake:

150 g Butter (melted)

100 g Sugar ( I used 50 g Caster sugar + 50 g Brown sugar )

120 g Self Raising flour

20 g Ground Almond (optional)

2 Large Eggs

1 Tsp Vanilla Extract

1/2 tsp Cinnamon Powder

1/8 tsp Nutmeg Powder 

50 g Walnut (toasted and chopped)

20g Raisins

60 ml Buttermilk

1 whole carrot (shredded)

Steps for the cake

• Pre heat oven at 170C. Grease and line 2 6 inch round pans with parchment paper.
• Sift the flour, add the walnut and raisins and coat well. ( To prevent them from sinking to the bottom while baking)
• In a small bowl mix ground almond, cinnamon powder and nutmeg powder.

• Pour the melted butter in a medium sized bowl with the sugar and beat till creamy.
• Crack eggs in separate bowls and add one after another while beating in a low speed.
• Mix in the vanilla extract and spice mix in the small bowl and turn off the beater.
• Using a rubber spatula fold in the flour alternating with buttermilk in 3 batches
• Add the shredded carrot and pour the batter into the greased pans, evenly.

• Bake for 30 minutes and set to cool before removing the cakes. 

Ingredients for the Cream Cheese Frosting:

250 g Cream Cheese

60 g Butter (preferably unsalted)

120 g Icing Sugar

Steps for the Frosting

• Beat together butter and cream cheese using medium speed.
• Using a spatula stir in the sugar until smooth and creamy.

You may decorate your cake according to your preference but I used some chopped walnuts and colorful sugar sprinkles. You may notice that my fondant carrot seem a little odd, thats because I tried adding color to the white fondant. Smartie pants you see *sighs*

Good Luck !

Renuka G