Moist Carrot and Walnut Layer Cake

This is a recipe I have been working on and planning for quite a while, so after all the hard work, I tucked into the first slice and it was 100% worth it! The cake is so moist and the texture is lovely. As some people in my family, including myself, are not the biggest fans of carrot cake, adding the extra flavours and textures of the walnuts made it a cake everyone could eat.

Carrot

Many of the carrot cake recipes are not clear about how much carrots to use and how to prepare them. My recipe requires 450g of whole carrots before they are peeled and grated. To prepare the carrots, use a peeler to take off the top layer of carrot. Then grate the carrots. I prefer to use a Microplane grater as the carrots are not too lumpy in the mixture that way. You can use a food processor to grate the carrot which is a much quicker and easier option however, I prefer to do this by hand as it is more consistent.

Fats

In every cake, there must be some source of fat. Usually, this comes in butter. However, for this recipe, I chose to use a mixture of butter and oil. Any vegetable or flavourless oil will do perfectly, such as canola oil. The oil adds even more moisture to the cake and therefore the cake ends up having a lovely texture.

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Moist Carrot and Walnut Cake

Ingredients:

Cake Batter

· 400g Plain Flour

· 200g Caster Sugar

· 200g Light Brown Sugar

· 100ml Oil (see above)

· 110g Unsalted Butter

· 6 Eggs

· 450g Carrots (See above)

· 100ml Whole Milk

· 1tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

· 2tsp Baking Powder

· 3tsp Cinnamon

· 1/4tsp Ground Nutmeg

· 100g Walnuts

Cream Cheese Buttercream

· 300g Unsalted Butter

· 200g Full Fat Cream Cheese

· 600g Icing Sugar

· 1tsp Vanilla Extract

Instructions:

Cake Batter

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius.

2. In a large bowl, mix the butter and oil until combined. It is okay if it seems lumpy or split. Then gradually add in both the caster and brown sugar.

3. Add in the eggs one at a time and mix.

4. In a small bowl, mix the baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add this to the oil mixture.

5. Sieve the flour and add half to the mixture. Then pour in the milk and vanilla extract.

6. Mix in the remaining flour and then the grated carrot and chopped walnuts.

7. Divide the batter into two 8-inch tins and bake for 20-25 minutes.

8. Once they have baked, leave to cool.

Cream Cheese Buttercream

1. Mix the butter vigorously for 5-10mins until it is a pale colour.

2. Add the sieved icing sugar in a number of instalments in order to make sure it is properly combined.

3. Add the cream cheese and vanilla extract and mix until it reaches the correct consistency.

4. It is important to try the buttercream to see how sweet you would like it. If it is not sweet enough, try adding some extra icing sugar.

5. Cover the buttercream to avoid a crust on the top forming.