Carrot cake

This is my granny, Ouma Sonnie's recipe.  It's a lovely moist cake, and even I can bake this (I'm new at this baking thing ;-) my middle sister, Leigh-Ann is the baker in the family... I do the cooking for fun)!

FYI

When carrots are boiled they are easier to digest, so it is likely that you take up more of the falcarinol [Falcarinol is thought to reduce the risk of developing cancer (http://en.wikipedia.org)] in them. Due to this it is not possible to say if boiled they are better or worse than raw. (www.carrotmuseum.co.uk)

You need:

4                eggs

2 cups       sugar

1 cup         oil

2 ½ cup   self raising flour

5ml           bicarbonate of soda

5ml           ground cinnamon

1 ml          salt

2 cups      grated carrot

1 cup        crushed pineapple

Preheat oven at 180°C

Beat together the eggs and the sugar

Then add the oil

Sift all the dry ingredients together  (self raising, bicarbonate of soda, ground cinnamon and salt) then add to the egg mixture

Fold in the carrot and pineapple

Pour the mixture into a buttered bread tin (I used Milo tins to make 3 smaller cakes, taking the edges off the tin with a tin opener before baking, I have also made them as cupcakes before) If you want to you can cut baking paper to put on the bottom of the tin so that it doesn’t stick.

Bake for 40 min @ 180°C (take a knitting needle or something similar and put it in the cake – if it comes out dry cake is done, if not let it bake a little while longer).

Icing

50g butter @ room temperature

1 cup icing sugar sifted

100g cream cheese

5 ml vanilla essence           

Mix the butter and the icing sugar, and then add the cream cheese and the vanilla essence.

Add a few drops of lemon juice (this will make the icing runnier, so depending on how runny you would like it – add a few drops – mix it and add more if needed)

Pour the icing over the cake when the cake has cooled down. 

 Enjoy! :-)