Simple Carrot Cake

Carrot Cake is a meaningful sweet treat to me; it brings me back to the first days I came to Australia. I had the chance to try the first piece of carrot cake when I was working in a small cafe in Melbourne. That was my first part-time job in Australia; I remember those days when I had to hop on, hop off 2-3 buses and trains to get to the workplace, got paid a little but were treated nicely anw. I learned about many new Western types savoury and sweet dishes there and also got the chance to see the chef making all of them, until now I still think that they sell the best cakes in Melbourne. The one cake that I was impressed the most back then was Carrot Cake with that fluffy cream cheese frosting, and today, I would like to share the recipe with you guys.

Ingredients:

Carrot Cake

1.5 cups of sugar

4 eggs

1.5 cups of vegetable oil

3 cups of shredded carrot (around 4-5 medium-sized carrots)

2.5 cups of all purpose flour

1tsp of cinnamon powder

1 and 1/4 tsp of baking powder

1 tsp of baking soda

1/2 tsp of salt

Cream Cheese Frosting

150g cream cheese

70g softened, unsalted butter

150g icing sugar

Making:

- Pre-heat the oven at 175C

- Mix sugar and eggs using a hand mixer, beat the mixture until it turns pale. Slowly add vegetable oil while continuing beating the mixture

- Add finely shredded carrot into the mixture and mix well

- Sieve the flour into the mixture and mix well

- Add cinnamon powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt and mix all together

- Spray you baking tray with oil or use non-stick paper. Pour the mixture into the tray and bake for about 35mins.

- While waiting let's make our cream cheese frosting. Even though I provide the recipe for the frosting above, but you can really adjust the ratio to your own taste. I usually do not measure the ingredients in frosting. I start with the amount of cream cheese I want, then put butter that equals to 2/3 of cream cheese, and sugar bit by bit to prevent my frosting from being overly sweet (that is what happens when you follow Western recipe online, they are all too too sweet for a Vietnamese like me to handle). Beat the mixture with a hand mixer until it turns pale and soft.

- Get the cake out of the oven and let it cool for about 10 mins (you can cut the cake in half to layer it or decorate first then cut into small pieces). Transfer it to a cooling rack to decorate with frosting and chopped walnuts, or almond or any type of nuts you like. I often top carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and chopped walnuts.

That's it, super easy, super delicious! If you try out this recipe and post your images on Instagram, please tag me @veronicaphm, I would love to see your creations.

Thanks a lot for reading! See you in my next recipe!

#sweet #cake #Australianfood #FoodIMake #baking #Cooking