Carrot Cake

This is a gluten and dairy free cake – and you’d never know it. If you like cinnamon and bags of flavour, this is a doddle of a cake to make and enjoy. At our Mountain Retreats, it’s become our “Welcome Cake” – after a warm hello (and usually a hug!), there’s carrot cake and a mug of tea sitting around the kitchen table as people arrive.

Carrot Cake
2 eggs
4oz soft dark brown sugar
6oz grated carrots
3 fluid oz sunflower oil
4 oz gluten-free flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp mixed spice
2 oz raisins
2 oz dessicated coconut

Icing
2oz dairy free spread
3oz soft dark brown sugar
Grated rind of one orange
Pecan nuts

Grate the carrots into a bowl, add the spices, raisins and flour then the teaspoon of baking powder. Don’t mix yet.

In another bowl, whisk up the eggs and sugar until they’re thick and creamy – as far as I’m concerned this gets done with an electric hand whisk. Add the oil and whisk again till the oil is all mixed in. Then briefly stir in all the rest of the cake ingredients – just enough to get all the flour wet.

Spoon the mixture straight into a greased and lined 7″ cake tin, level it out a bit then bake at 190C (Gas Mark 5) for about 20 minutes till its firm, golden and you’re getting nice cakey smells wafting out of the oven.

Let the cake cool on a wire rack and whilst it does that, make the icing by beating the dairy-free spread, brown sugar and orange peel together till fluffy and creamy.

Once the cake has cooled, spread the icing on and decorate with Pecan nuts. Mmmm.

Want someone else to cook this for you? Come along to a restorative mountain retreat with us and as well as Carrot Cake, enjoy relaxingly paced walks, home cooked meals, cosy log fires and plenty of pampering.