Yesterday amidst the chaos of cooking I somehow found enough time to grab a recipe off the net and use up the rest of the carrots all in one fell swoop.  The requirement was a very simple carrot cake that could be made in the blink of a very tired eye, and this recipe came up trumps. Yummy Scrummy Carrot Cake by Mary Cadogan off the BBC Good Food website was simplicity itself to make, possibly a healthier version by using vegetable oil and is delicious and very moist to eat.  There is even a video to show you how easy, I’ve only just seen it, I completely missed the link yesterday.

The only changes I made, was I used baking powder instead of bicarbonate of soda, you do need the extra lift even though you are using self raising flour, as you don’t have the creaming of butter and sugar which creates air and therefore lift in the cake.  I prefer the flavour of baking powder or rather should I say, I don’t like the flavour of bicarbonate of soda. It is alright if the recipe has enough acid in it to make sure all of the reaction has taken place but if it hasn’t neutralised and there hasn’t been enough acid it can leave one with a soapy metallic taste in the mouth. Often noticed in scones when the chef has just used milk instead of the acidic buttermilk and bicarbonate of soda, without really realising why one needs the buttermilk.  Also you will need more of the baking powder than the bicarbonate of soda, but as we were using self raising flour as well I didn’t think it was too crucial so just added the tip of a teaspoon extra.  I also changed the spices, surprisingly not having cinnamon or nutmeg in the cupboards as I’d done a big clear out of all the cupboards a couple of months ago and hadn’t replaced old stock, so I used mixed spice, which is basically cinnamon and nutmeg as well as cloves and other spices, it worked well and is much underrated as a store cupboard spice mix.As you can see my icing was a bit of a fail, it was a bit runny to do the drizzling, I could have added more icing sugar and spent a bit longer, but the lure of a gin and tonic which hubby was pouring, himself having only just got home after a long day was too strong. And as you can see it came out well, moist, light and delicious, what more do you want out of a cut and come again cake.