Carrot Cake

Dear friends, hello and Happy New Year!!

I hope that you are all good and had a great time during Christmas. I am back after a few months of silence, posting a Carrot-Cake recipe that I baked back in October –but still discussing about it at home.

I have some wonderful news that i wish to share with you, the reason of my absence is that I am pregnant, expecting our second baby. As you can imagine I had a really difficult first trimester. I could not eat anything, let alone to cook, taste and write about food. Anyway, I am feeling much much better these days and enjoying it a lot. I managed to deliver a 12 people dinner in New Years Eve at home and I even baked them a Vasilopita, (I am posting soon the recipe).

I wish to all of you a great 2019, health and love all around you.

Now, back to the delicious Carrot cake friends!! You must must try it!!

You will need: 

250 gr. corn oil

350 gr. brown sugar

400 gr. cleaned, finely chopped carrots

4 eggs

zest from 1 lemon & it`s lemon juice

400 gr. self-raising flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

a pinch of salt

70 gr. raisin (currant)

10 apricots dried, finely chopped

50 gr. walnuts grated

You will also need -for the decoration 

Pastry Cream

500 gr. milk

a few nuts chopped

* Pre-heat the oven and prepare the pan with butter and flour and chop the carrots. Sift in a bowl the flour and stir with the Baking Powder, the salt and the cinnamon. In another bowl, stir the raisins with the walnuts and the chopped apricots.

Beat in the mixer the oil with the brown sugar to soften a little and gradually add the eggs, the lemon juice and the lemon zest. With a spatula, add the grated carrots to the mixture first, then the mixture with the flour and then the mixture with the raisins.

When the ingredients are homogenized in a single mix, pour it into the pan you have prepared and bake the cake in the preheated oven for about 45-50 minutes. Check if it is baked, by sinking into the center a knife, which has to be dry when you take it out. 

Thoroughly rinse it and after 5 minutes, grind it on a grill to cool completely. Prepare the pastry cream and let it cool down in the refrigerator. When the cake is cooled, decorate the surface with the pastry cream and the chopped nuts or any other topping you wish.

Enjoy, Anthea