Life is too short to eat average cake!

This weekend we were invited to a birthday dinner of friends and I suggested baking a cake for the event. The birthday boy requested a carrot cake and luckily enough I had a killer tried and tested carrot cake recipe on file.

The recipe is nothing short of pure sin, but when it comes to cakes I believe that a small piece of fabulous cake is so much more worthwhile than a big piece of average cake. In fact I think life is too short to eat average cake at all.

As part of the decoration I used edible gold glitter and even though it’s a bit cheesy, it makes me so happy!

Carrot Cake

2 ½ cups (625ml) cake flour

2tsp (10ml) baking powder

1 ½ tsp (7.5ml) bicarbonate of soda

1 Tbsp (15ml) mixed spice

1 tsp (5ml) salt

1 ¼ cups (312.5ml) sugar

1 ¼ cups (312.5ml) of oil - a neutral tasting vegetable oil

4 large eggs, at room temperature

2 cups (500ml) grated carrot

1 cup of fresh grated pineapple or crushed tinned pineapple drained

½ cup (125ml) chopped pecan nuts, reserve some for decorating the cake

¼ cup (62.5ml) smooth apricot jam

Preheat your oven to 190C˚ and place the rack in the middle of the oven.

Sift the dry ingredients twice. Beat the sugar, oil and eggs together until well blended at high speed for 3 minutes. Add the carrots, pineapple, nuts and apricot jam and mix well. Sift the dry ingredients over the mixture and fold it in with a spatula.

Pour into a greased cake tin (28cm spring form tin or two loaf tins), bake at 45 min. Allow the cake to cool in the tin before unmoulding. Ice the cake once completely cool.

Cream cheese icing

¼ cup (75ml) butter

250g of cream cheese

3 cups of icing sugar (sifted)

1 tsp (5ml) vanilla essence

A squeeze of lemon juice

Blend all the above ingredients until smooth but don’t over beat as it may split. Keep the icing fairly cool as it will keep it’s shape better.