Carrot, orange and cardamom cake
This carrot cake is moist and delicious enough to be eaten without the topping, but make it if you can. This is a good way to use up end of season carrots. And although it takes a while in the oven, it's essentially very easy to make.
Ingredients
- 125g light brown soft sugar
- 250ml sunflower oil
- 3 eggs, beaten
- 12 cardamom pods
- ¼ tsp ground ginger
- ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
- zest of 2 oranges
- 300g self raising flour
- 225g carrots, peeled and grated weight
- 75g walnuts, chopped
- 250g mascarpone or other cream cheese
- 2-3 tsp orange juice
- 50g icing sugar
Method
-
Step 1
Preheat oven to 180°C/Gas 4.
-
Step 2
Lightly grease a 20cm spring form cake tin and line with baking parchment.
-
Step 3
Beat the sugar, oil and eggs together in a large bowl. Remove the black seeds from the cardamom pods, discard the outer husk and add the seeds, with the ginger, cinnamon and orange zest to the bowl. Mix together.
-
Step 4
Sift in the flour and stir in the carrot and walnuts. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake in the oven for 1 to 1¼ hours, until cooked (test by inserting a skewer; if it comes out clean, it's ready).
-
Step 5
To make the topping, beat the cream cheese, orange juice and icing sugar together in a bowl.
-
Step 6
Spread over the cake. Keep in the fridge if not serving immediately.
