Classic Carrot Cake

It's good to have a classic recipe which you can rely on and "almost" guarantees that everybody loves it.  

This is my humble simple carrot cake. The main ingredients weigh 6 oz (175g) so it's very easy to remember. 

This is nothing fancy, but it always makes me feel cosy. It's a cake, but with vegetables in it, so I don't feel so guilty........... am I totally wrong? 

Ah, by the way, this recipe has slightly less fat than conventional carrot cake recipes.  

6 oz Carrot Cake

Ingredients

• 6oz (175g) brown soft sugar
• 6oz (175g) self-raising flour
• 6oz (175g) grated carrot

• 150ml sunflower oil
• 100g sultanas
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tsp baking-powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• grated zest of 1 large orange

• 175g icing sugar
• 1-2 Tbsp orange juice or lemon juice

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/fan 160C.
2. Tip the sugar into a large mixing bowl, pour in the oil and add the eggs. Lightly mix with a wooden spoon. Stir in the grated carrots, raisins and orange rind.
3. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices, then sift into the bowl. Lightly mix all the ingredients – when everything is evenly amalgamated stop mixing. The mixture will be fairly soft and almost runny.
4. Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 50 minutes, until it feels firm and springy when you press it in the centre. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn it out, peel off the paper and cool on a wire rack. (You can freeze the cake at this point.)
5. Beat together the frosting ingredients in a small bowl until smooth – you want the icing about as runny as single cream. Set the cake on a serving plate and boldly drizzle the icing back and forth in diagonal lines over the top, letting it drip down the sides. 

Cinnamon Nutella Cake

Nutella on toast is my comfort food.
The lovely nutty and chocolatey flavour is one of my childhood memories. I loved to munch Nutella in a soft bread roll and drink very sweet coffee flavoured milk when I was a little girl. I thought that was the best combo when I was starving after a swimming lesson. :)
I was wondering if there was a cake recipe using Nutella, and found quite a few. This recipe is based on the one I found in BBC Good Food. It worked very well with low-fat spread producing a very moist and fluffy sponge. I tried to make a marble effect with the Nutella, but as you see all the Nutella sank to the bottom. As a result, there was slightly crunchy chocolate stuff in the bottom which I quite enjoyed.

Ingredients

• 175g (6 oz) softened butter ( I used Low-Fat spread)
• 175g (6 oz) golden caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 200g (7 oz) self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 4 tbsp milk
• 4 rounded tbsp Nutella or own-brand chocolate hazelnut spread
• 50g hazelnuts (I used walnuts), roughly chopped

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4/ fan 160C. Butter and line the base of a 20cm round cake tin.
2. Put the butter (or low-fat spread), sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, cinnamon and milk into a bowl. Beat with an electric hand mixer for 1-2 minutes, until light and fluffy.
3. Tip three quarters of the mixture into the tin, spread it level, then spoon the Nutella on in four blobs. Top with the remaining mixture, swirl a few times with a skewer, then smooth to cover the Nutell
4. Sprinkle with the nuts. Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, until risen, nicely browned, feels firm to touch and springs back when lightly pressed (cover with foil if it starts to brown too quickly). Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out, peel off the paper and cool on a wire rack. Wrap tightly in double thick foil to keep fresh for up to a week.