Back in the early 2000's when I first moved out of home and started living my own life, I scoured thousands upon thousands of recipes! I was eager to start cooking for myself, experiment with different foods, and eat something "more" than what I was used to.
The typical Australian household back then -- as far as I was aware anyway -- subsided on sausages and mashed potato with frozen microwaved veggies, or rissoles and mashed potato with frozen microwaved veggies. Sometimes we'd have what my mum called a "shamozzle" which was basically mince, frozen veggies, a tin of spaghetti and a Dolmio, all mixed together and served with mashed potato.
Naturally, when I moved out of home, I was very motivated to try new things. xD Dinners, desserts, snacks, everything!!
One of those new things was a Carrot Cake recipe I found on a now non-existent website called Recipezaar. It purported to be the best carrot cake you'll ever have, and it most definitely lived up to its description. I saved the recipe and have been using it for nearly 20 years now!
Today, I'm sharing that recipe here on Hive! 😊
🥕 Cake Ingredients:
- 2 cups of Self Raising Flour
- 1 and a half cups of White Sugar
- 1 cup of Vegetable Oil
- 1 cup of Desiccated Coconut
- 3 or 4 Carrots, grated
- 3 large Eggs
- 1 can of Crushed Pineapple (225g)
- Vanilla Extract (about a teaspoon)
- Cinnamon (about a tablespoon)
- a pinch of Salt
First of all, preheat your oven to 175 degrees Celsius.
Then in a large bowl, mix together all of your dry ingredients -- flour, sugar, cinnamon, coconut.
Start adding in the other ingredients. I'm not very fancy. Do it bit by bit if you want or just chuck it all in together.
We're not doing any fancy whisking this, or beating that, or slowly combining this. I'm not a youtube chef. Just chuck it all in. You'll get pretty much the same result.
Mix and mix until it's a nice smooth consistency and everything has been well combined.
I only had two carrots unfortunately, which is what I would consider the absolute minimum amount for a carrot cake. Ideally you'd have 4 decent sized ones grated up in there.
The original recipe has chopped walnut in the mixture too, but I don't like hard chunks in my cakes. I prefer the walnuts on top as a decoration.
Pour it evenly into your pre-prepared cake tin or disposable aluminium baking tray!
9x13 inch is the recommended size for this amount of cake batter. Mine's a little smaller than that -- 8x12.
For 9x13, the recommended cooking time is 45 minutes. For 8x12, 45 minutes was also fine! But, as always, check with the toothpick-poke test to make sure it's ready.
This is a pretty heavy batter so is expected to sink a little in the centre. That's okay! Allow the cake to cool and then we'll get started on the frosting. The only frosting a carrot cake should have. Delicious, delicious cream cheese frosting!
🥕 Frosting Ingredients:
- 1 package of Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened
- 1/4 cup of Butter, softened
- 2 cups of Icing Sugar
So easy to make. Just mix together the cream cheese and butter, then mix in the icing sugar until it's all combined and smooooooth.
2 cups of Icing Sugar is just a guide. If you prefer your frosting less sweet, 1 cup of Icing Sugar is fine too! It all depends on your personal tastes.
Now we can decorate the cake! Huzzah!
And then we can chop it up and serve it for dessert. Or lunch. Or even have it for dinner if you want. I won't judge you. xD
Until next time! 🥕🍰
All photos in this post are courtesy of me, 