Birthday Celebration - A Carrot Cake

I was undecided on what to bake for my father-in-law's birthday. I wanted to bake something for him, but not something with lots of frosting since we will be dining out. So I decided on a carrot cake. I've tried a couple of carrot cake recipes before and all of them are really good. This time, I decided to use the recipe from Rose's Heavenly Cakes (time to use it). I don't want to keep using the same recipe, and preferred to try a new recipe, even though there might be some risk involved.

I frosted it with cream cheese as the way I like it, even though the recipe given was with Creamy White Chocolate frosting. Since my in-laws are not a fan of cheese, I used only very minimal and frosted it very thinly. If it was for my own consumption, I would have doubled the recipe for the cream cheese frosting and spread it thickly! *yum* I also decorated it with some fondant, just to beautify it a little. The cake was very moist, just the way I remembered and like.


Recipe for Carrot Cake, modified from Rose's Heavenly Cakes (finally!)

Carrot Cake
Ingredients:
300g Plain flour
1 1/2 tsps Baking powder
1 tsp Baking soda
1 tsp Salt
1 tbsp Cocoa powder
2 tsp Cinnamon powder
190g Sugar (original was 300g)
100g Light brown sugar
269g Canola oil
200g Eggs (approx. 4 large eggs)
2 tsp Vanilla extract
454g Carrots, coarsely shredded (approx. 4 large carrots)
142g Raisins (I soaked in rum the night before)
120g Walnuts, coarsely chopped (optional, this was not in the original recipe)

Method:
1. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cocoa powder and cinnamon.
2. In a bowl of stand mixer fitted with flat beater, beat the sugar, brown sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla on medium speed for 1 min, or until well blended.
3. Add the flour mixture and beat o nlow speed for about 20 secs, just until incorporated.
4. Add the carrots and the raisins and beat for another few secs to mix.
5. Add in the walnuts and mix just enough to incorporate.
6. Pour the batter into a 9" round cake pan. [Original recipe use two 9" round cake pan. That will bake for about 45-55mins]
7. Bake in a pre-heat oven of 175C for about 85mins, or until the cake tester inserted in the centre comes out clean.
8. The cake should just shrink from the sides of the pan.
9. Let the cakes cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10mins. Remove and cool it upright on a wire rack.

Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:
100g Cream cheese, softened at room temperature
50g Icing sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp Lemon juice
Some lemon zest

Method:
1. Beat cream cheese and icing sugar till light and fluffy.
2. Add the lemon juice and lemon zest. Beat till incorporated.
3. Then frost the carrot cake, and decorate it.