American Carrot Cake: Easy cake for everyday

My brother like carrot cake and my sisters, they love it, I think many people like carrot cake, too. In fact, I really want to try the recipe which my friend sends to me (the Yellow butter cake from ................. she said that this book is real great, and she want me to try the recipe). But, my brother told me that he want something sweet to eat and he don’t want a plain butter cake, so I suggested carrot cake (I knew he couldn’t say “No”), and the answer is “Yes”. Anyway, I had new books (a lot of new books), so this is a chance to try new books (again). I choose this recipe from ........................, this carrot cake is very easy to make too. I reduce the sugar a bit (about 40 g), and use pecan nut (you can use any kind of nut that you like, for me I like pecan nut more than walnut).

American Carrot Cake

MAKES A 2-LAYER 20 CM 8 IN CAKE

For the cake
250 ml	vegetable oil
4	room-temperature eggs, beaten
180 g	soft light brown sugar
140 g	carrots, peeled and finely
225g	self-raising flour (or using cake flour with 1 tsp baking powder)
½ teaspoon	bicarbonate of soda
½ teaspoons	ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon	ground ginger
140 g	walnuts, chopped (or use any kind of nut, which you like)
For the icing
45g	unsalted butter, softened
170 g	good quality full-fat cream cheese
300 g	icing sugar
1 teaspoon	vanilla essence
	A dash of salt
	lemon juice to taste

1 Heat the oven to 180°C. Line 2 X 20cm 8 in sandwich tins with baking parchment.

2 In a bowl, stir together the oil, eggs, sugar and carrots.

3 Sift the flour (with the baking powder, if using), bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and ginger into a large bowl.

4 Fold the 2 mixtures together then fold in the walnuts.

5 Divide between the 2 tins and bake in the centre of the oven for 25 minutes or until the cakes spring back when pressed lightly in the centre.

6 Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes in the tin, then turn out and cool completely..

7 To make the icing, beat the butter and cream cheese together until smooth, add the vanilla. Sift the icing sugar over the top and stir in. Add the lemon juice and salt, to taste.

8 Use the icing to fill the cake and ice the top.