What could be better for you than a cake with a healthy dose of carrots and ginger!
Pork Belly is a lover of carrot cake in all forms and went overboard on the size. You may well want to halve the quantities for a sensible sized cake.
According to the World Carrot Museum, no-one is really sure of the origins of our modern carrot cake but it’s most likely descended from medieval carrot puddings. It’s certainly true that carrots have long been used as a sweetener when sugar has been in short supply.
America seems to be responsible for adding the cream cheese frosting.
Carrot and ginger cake
A moist carrot cake with more than a hint of ginger
Ingredients
- 400 g muscovado sugar
- 300 g self-raising flour
- 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
- 320 ml sunflower or vegetable oil
- 4 eggs
- 400 g grated carrots
- 150 g stem ginger diced
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- For the icing:
- 300 g icing sugar
- 50 g butter
- 125 g cream cheese
- 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 150 deg C, 300 deg F, Gas mark 2
- Grease and line a 9 inch/23 cm cake tin.
- Place the oil, eggs, flour, bicarbonate of soda,sugar and ground ginger into a large bowl and beat well.
- Stir in grated carrot and stem ginger, mix thoroughly.
- Pour the cake batter into a prepared tin and bake for about 2 hours until a skewer comes out clean when inserted.
- Place on a cooling rack for about 10 minutes before turning out.
- Leave to cool completely before icing.
- For the icing:
- Sift the icing sugar and beat in the butter until smooth.
- Add the cream cheese and beat until it is well incorporated.
- Beat for another 5 minutes until light and fluffy.
- Spread or pipe the frosting onto the cake.
Other recipes you may like:
• Chocolate brownie strawberry shortbread
• Coconut flour pancakes with blackberries
• Eliza Acton’s Plum Pudding
What size baking tin?????
Hi Deborah, Pork Belly believes cakes come in two sizes, large and extra large! This one was made with a 9 inch/23cm pushpan. Sorry we didn’t have that on the recipe – will amend that now. Thanks for getting in touch. Happy baking.
Really easy to make and very yummy, haven’t added the cream cheese icing yet, but lovely without so far! I ended up with one large cake and ten cup cakes, loads of mixture, will probably halve it next time. A truly gorgeous cake.
When it comes to cake Pork Belly doesn’t believe in small! So glad you like it, I highly recommend his Irish Whiskey Coffee Cake too.
Could you please tell me the size of the baking tin required. Many thanks.
Mrs M Douglas
On the principle of ‘Go Large or Go Home’ Pork Belly used a 20cm/9inch Lakeland pushpan for his recipe. It makes a good sized, deep cake. You could always reduce the quantities or split it between two tins and adjust the cooking time a little. Let us know how it turns out for you.