Carrot cake with orange cream icing

I spent a week in Stockholm with M. at the end of April and of course I needed to make a cake..or two..or more. After we hocus-pocused the birthday cake and the baklava, my next victim was the carrots in the fridge.

I had made carrot cake a long time ago, I didn't really remember the recipe I tried formerly so I looked around on my favorite blogger's site. I looked for a recipe which says not only "this is the best carrot cake I've ever tasted" but what Rachel Allen wrote. This is elegantly simple, it doesn't need to try too hard to be absolutely delicious. It's light, but the hazelnuts give it an incredible texture - delicate and nutty at the same time.

I have to say she was right so I can gladly recommend it to anyone irrespectively of who is in practice or beginner. Everyone will bring down the house with this delicacy.

I made the cake in a 20 cm round cake pan, multiplied the rates by 1,5, put more spices, my favorite ingridient, the lemon zest and for the cream icing I admixed some whipped cream in the cream cheese.

Ingridients:

3 eggs
210 ml vegetable oil
30 dkg soft light brown sugar
30 dkg grated carrot
10 dkg chopped walnuts
25 dkg flour
Pinch of salt
1/2 tablespoon bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ginger
Grated zest of a half lemon

For the top:
20 dkg cream cheese
1 dl heavy cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract or vanilia sugar
15 dkg icing sugar

Grated zest of 1 orange

1. Peel then grate the carrot, chop finely the walnut.

2. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

3. In a large bowl, stir the egg and sugar with whisk till it gets white then add the oil, grated carrot, chopped nuts and grated zest of a half lemon.

4. In another bowl measure the flour, the bicarbonate of soda, the cinnamon, the ginger stir them and bring the two mixtures together.

5. Pour this mixture into the prepared cake pan , smooth the surface and bake in the oven for 75 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

6. Allow to cool in the tin for about 5 minutes before removing. Cool completely on a wire rack before putting the icing on it.

7. To make the icing, put the cold heavy cream in a mixing bowl. With an electric hand mixer beat the cream. As the cream thickens, add the cream cheese and beat them together in a bowl until combined. Add the vanilla extract or sugar, icing sugar and finely grated orange zest and mix to combine. The icing should be smooth and quite thick. 

8. Spread the icing evenly over the cooled cake, dipping the knife into a bowl of hot water if the icing is hard to spread out. Cut into slices to serve.