Delicious to the last piece…
And in our home pineapple and carrots count as fruit and vegetable, no matter how they are presented!
Carrot Pineapple Cake
This carrot cake is incredibly moist and full of flavour, topped with a blanket of smooth and tangy cream cheese frosting. In one word—luscious!
Ingredients
- For the cake
- 175g soft light brown sugar
- 3 eggs
- 200ml sunflower oil
- 200g crushed pineapple
- 300g plain flour
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp mixed spice
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 300g carrots, grated
- 100g shelled walnuts, chopped, plus extra to decorate, chopped and whole
- For the cream cheese frosting
- 300g icing sugar
- 50g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 125g cream cheese, cold
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 170C. Line two 23cm springform cake tins. Put the sugar, eggs, oil and pineapple into a large bowl and mix until all the ingredients are well incorporated (either in a freestanding electric mixer or with a handheld mixer). Slowly add the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, cinnamon, mixed spice, salt and vanilla extract and continue to beat until well mixed.
- Stir in the grated carrots and chopped walnuts, making sure they are evenly distributed. Fold in the pecans. 3.Spoon the mixture into prepared cake tins and top with the pecan halves. Smooth over with a palette knife.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown and the sponge bounces back when pressed.
- Leave the cakes to cool slightly in the tins before turning out on a wire rack to cool completely.
- When the cakes have finished cooling down, place one of them on a plate/cake board/cake stand and spread about 1/4 of the cream cheese frosting over it with a palette knife. Place the second cake on top and the rest of the frosting over the top and the sides.
- Decorate the top with whole and/or chopped walnuts and a light sprinkle of cinnamon.
- Refrigerate for 30 minutes before serving. This allows the frosting to set and makes the cake easier to slice and serve.
- Decorate the top with mini sugar carrots for an extra-special touch.
- You can also make this cake as a single layer (with or without icing), just make sure you increase the baking time to 45/50 minutes as it is a dense cake batter. If you bake it in a square/rectangular tin and cut it up in squares it makes a sublime bitesize treat for picnics and parties, or to have with a coffee at any time of the day!
- If you don’t have crushed pineapple you can crush canned pineapple slices or chunks, or even fresh pineapple!
- Delicious when freshly made, but keeps extremely well in the fridge (in an airtight container or wrapped in clingfilm) for up to 5 days, just take it out of the fridge 15/20 minutes before consuming.
Like a layer cake, life has its ups and downs. However, whether you frost it up or style it with all sorts of toppings and decorations is all up to you.
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