Jamie Oliver´s Carrot Cake with Nuts

I love carrot cakes. I love the crunchiness of its carrots and the nuts, its spices, slight sourness, hm... everything. I have about 20 carrot cake recipes that i actually tried.

Jamie Oliver's Carrot Cake is one of the bestest. I made it at least 10 times already, because it is easy to make and you would really have to try hard to mess it up. I have my own version (recipe below) that I really enjoy. So today, I felt like making it again and while looking for the recipes, I realized that this one never left its post-queue. Well, here it is - belated summer ode :-)

Another summery day at work when thing are just dragging their feet and as half of the office is on vacation, there is not much better to do than eat cookies and cakes :-)
Oh well, it might be a bit exaggerated, but summers ARE slower than winters. So while waiting for other colleagues returning all happy and tanned from their fancy vacations, I decided to bake another cake (the third of its kind this summer) for the few left in the offices.

I am now in process of moving out of my apartment and so for the very last time, while I was browsing through my soon-to-be-ex room mate´s cookbooks (thanks girl ;-), I ran into my all-time favorite - Jamie Oliver. Having tons of carrots in the fridge and a few other leftovers, this cake seemed to combine it all - festiveness of the looks an simplicity of ingredients.

So while I am looking forward to my new kitchen, you guys enjoy my version of Jamie Oliver´s:

CARROT CAKE
(Gulerodskage)
250g butter, room temperature250g sugar (preferably brown, I used white)
5 eggsjuice and zest of 1 orangejuice of half lemon
170g sieved flour2 tsp baking powderpinch salt
50g chopped almonds120g chopped walnuts1 tsp cinnamon
pinch ground clovespinch ground nutmeg1/2 tsp ginger285g grated carrotsPreheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Whisk the butter with the sugar. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and whisk in the yolks, one at a time. Add the orange zest and juice, lemon juice, followed by the flour, baking powder and spices. Add the chopped nuts and carrots. Mix well.

Whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until foamy. Add the foam to the cake, mix in carefully. Pour the cake batter into a baking tray and bake for about 50 minutes. Let cool down completely before serving.

It was very moist and juicy - yums, the cake disappeared in a second :-)