Carrot cake

Like the banana cake (see Cakes and puds page), this is a sort-of healthy cake in that some of the fat is replaced with fibre - in this case, carrots.

You will need:

• 150g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 150g butter or margarine
• 200g gf flour (I used Doves Farm plain flour and added 1.5 tsp baking powder)
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1-2 tsps ground mixed spice
• 200g carrots
• 170g raisins or sultanas (I also added some dried cranberries left over from Christmas)

1. Heat the oven to 170C.
2. Butter and flour a cake tin (I used a round one with a removable bottom)
3. Grate the carrots into a large mixing bowl. Add the sultanas.
4. In a food mixer, cream the sugar and butter until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and blitz briefly.
5. Sieve in the flour, mixed spice and bicarb a little at a time and blitz briefly.
6. Pour the flour mixture into the carrot mixture and fold until well combined.
7. Pour into the cake tin and bake until a skewer comes out clean. Mine took 40 minutes at 150C in a fan oven.

I made a not so healthy or low fat(!) butter cream topping for mine using the juice of an orange, 100g of butter, 100g icing sugar and 100g unrefined caster sugar. Cream the butter with a hand mixer until smooth, sieve in the sugars a little at a time and mix well. Add the orange juice and then chill until the cake is cool enough to ice. (It went a bit runny but tasted good!)