Name: Carrot cake, the best and winner recipe
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; 1 cup mild olive oil, grapeseed oil or sunflower oil; 3 eggs; 1½ cups plain flour; 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda; 2 tsp cinnamon or allspice*; 1½ tsp baking powder; Pinch salt; 2 cups grated carrot; ½ cup chopped walnuts; Optional –; ½ cup sultanas; Frosting; 250g cream cheese; 50g butter; 2 tsp vanilla; ½ - ¾ cup icing sugar

"This carrot cake recipe came from England - it was requested from a chef at a glitzy restaurant in London. It arrived weeks later in the post with a bill for $300!!

Here it is...definitely one to be shared"– Melody Davidson-Black.

$300 recipe! Luckily this is the BEST carrot cake recipe! It really is though - I love carrot cake and was given five recipes for Tastebuddy and I cooked them all. From the Women’s weekly one to family favourites, and this is the winner.

The secret must be creaming the eggs and oil to emulsify for 7 minutes, (do not skip this step), as the texture is beautiful, light and moist.

The icing has just the right amount of sweetness too. So good!

Serves 8 – 10. V.

Pictured: Carrot Cake

Ingredients

1 cup sugar

1 cup mild olive oil, grapeseed oil or sunflower oil

3 eggs

1½ cups plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp cinnamon or allspice*

1½ tsp baking powder

Pinch salt

2 cups grated carrot

½ cup chopped walnuts

Optional –

½ cup sultanas

Frosting

250g cream cheese

50g butter

2 tsp vanilla

½ - ¾ cup icing sugar

Method

Preheat the oven to 150°C. Grease and line a 20cm round cake tin.

Beat sugar, oil and eggs for 7 minutes.

Sift dry ingredients and then stir into the mixture.

Fold in the carrot and walnuts.

Bake for 45 – 50 minutes.

Beat frosting ingredients until smooth and ice cake, once cooled, including sides.

*'Allspice' is the English name of the dried, unripe berry from a tropical American tree - Pimenta dioica. It has a flavour hinting of cloves, black pepper, nutmeg and cinnamon. Spanish explorers named them 'pimento' (peppercorn) in the 16th century as they likened them to black pepper.

Baking Powder

Baking powder is a raising agent containing bicarbonate of soda and tartaric acid. To absorb moisture in storage it also has dried starch or flour. The way it works to raise cakes, biscuits and breads, is that when it is warmed and becomes moist it gives off carbon dioxide. It does have a used by date - so make sure to check this if a recipe fails. It's ideal for coeliac sufferers to make their own when the gluten-free variety of this raising agent cannot be found.

15ml/1tbsp bicarbonate of soda

30ml/2tbsp cream of tartar

Combine exactly, as the wrong combination can upset a recipe’s balance.

Makes 3 tbsp

Pictured: Carrot cake