Carrot Cake Recipe with Ginger

This is a variation of the classic carrot cake recipe with ginger and muscovando sugar.

Ginger has many health benefits, besides from making the cake yummy.

The muscovando sugar gives the cake a richer flavor, so I don't recommend you replace it with plain white sugar. You can replace the muscovando sugar with brown sugar though.

Use low-fat cream cheese for the frosting in this carrot cake recipe and you'll have a dessert you can enjoy without feelings of guilt (as long as you keep it within the right calorie range, of course.)

10 servings

Ingredients

butter, for greasing
225 g/8 oz plain flour, replace half with whole grain if you wish
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt
175 g/6 oz light muscovando sugar, can be replaced with brown sugar
225 g/8 oz carrots, grated
2 pieces stem ginger in syrup, drained and chopped
25 g/1 oz fresh root ginger, grated
55 g/2 oz seedless raisins
2 medium eggs, beaten
3 tbsp corn oil
juice of 1 medium orange

Frosting
225 g/8 oz low-fat cream cheese
4 tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
stem ginger pieces and freshly grated root ginger, to decorate

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/350 F. Grease and line a 20-cm/8-inch round tin with baking paper.

Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, ground ginger and salt into a bowl.Stir in the sugar, carrots, stem ginger, root ginger and raisins.
Beat the eggs, corn oil and orange juice together, and then pour into the bowl. Mix well.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the preheated oven for 1-1 1/4 hour, or until firm to the touch and s skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.Leave to cool in the tin.

To make the frosting, place the cream cheese in a bowl and beat to soften.
Sift in the icing sugar and add the vanilla essence. Mix well.

Remove the cake from the tin and smooth the frosting over the top. Decorate the cake with pieces of stem ginger and a little grated fresh ginger, and then serve.