Do you have a sudden influx of Christmas guests? Don't despair, help is here with this quick and easy recipe for last-minute Christmas carrot cake.
Ingredients
- 250ml vegetable oil, plus extra for greasing
- 3 large (about 350g) carrots, grated
- 75g macadamia nuts, chopped
- 75g pecan halves, chopped
- 170g mixed dried berries and cherries (we used Forest Feast, from Tesco and Waitrose)
- 100g ready-to-eat dried figs, apricots or prunes, roughly chopped
- 300g golden granulated sugar
- 300g self-raising flour
- 1 tsp mixed spice
- 1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 4 large organic eggs, beaten
Method
- 1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan160°C/gas 4. Grease and line a 20cm round, deep, loose-bottomed cake tin.
- 2. In a large bowl, combine 250ml vegetable oil, carrots, nuts, dried fruit and sugar. Sift the flour, spices and baking powder over the mixture and mix thoroughly. Add the eggs and mix until well combined.
- 3. Spoon into the cake tin, level the surface and bake for 2-21/4 hours, until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean – cover with foil after about 11/4 hours to stop the top browning too much. Cool in the tin for 20 minutes, then turn out, and cool completely on a wire rack. If you’re using this cake to make the Christmas ice castle, follow the instructions on p78 of the January 2007 issue.
Nutritional info
Per serving: 389kcals, 21.1g fat (2.9g saturated), 5.1g protein, 39.4g carbs, 23.8g sugar, 0.5g salt
Chef's tip
This is a light, moist cake but it’s still packed full of fruits, nuts and Christmas flavours. Use as the base for the ice castle cake (p78 of the January 2007 issue), or use the mixture to make the snowflake carrot cupcakes (p80 of the January 2007 issue).