Carrot Cake Recipe With Apricots and Cranberries

This deliciously moist carrot cake recipe is packed full of carrots and succulent apricots, topped off with a yummy buttercream icing and chopped cranberries. It can keep for several days when stored in a tin - although the last time I made this the whole thing was polished off in about 24 hours!

Preparation Time 25 mins - Cooking Time 45 mins - Makes one large cake

Ingredients

For the cake:

3 medium sized carrots, peeled and finely grated

100g dried apricots, chopped into small pieces

3 medium sized eggs, lightly beaten

175g light brown muscovado sugar

175g self-raising flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

grated zest of 1 large orange

175ml olive or sunflower oil

For the buttercream icing:

75g butter

175g icing sugar

Few drops of vanilla essence

25g dried cranberries, finely chopped

Method

1. Pour the muscovado sugar, eggs and oil into a large bowl and stir gently. Next, add in the grated carrot, chopped apricots and orange zest and mix gently.

2. Place the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ground cinnamon in a large sieve and sift into the cake mixture. Gently mix together all the ingredients.

3. Pour the cake mixture into a greased and lined 8" round cake tin and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for approximately 40-45 minutes until the cake has risen nicely and feels firm and springy in the middle. Cool the cake in its tin for about 5 minutes then turn out, peel off the lining paper and leave to cool on a wire rack.

4. While the cake is cooling, make up the buttercream icing by placing the butter in a bowl and beating until softened. Next, gradually sift and beat in the icing sugar then add a few drops of vanilla essence until the icing is a creamy consistency. Spread the icing over the cooled cake and sprinkle with the chopped cranberries.

Variations

You could try adding 100g of chopped raisins to the cake mixture instead of the chopped apricots. And a sprinkling of chopped walnuts in place of the cranberry pieces also works really well in this carrot cake recipe.

Top Tip

A wee word of advice to keep things as simple as possible is to prep and measure out all the individual ingredients before you start cooking and place them in individual bowls.

The first time I made this cake I thought I'd just do this as I went along... The result? One extremely messy kitchen and cook! :)

Nutrition Nugget

As well as helping to improve our eyesight, carrots also contain beta-carotene - a powerful antioxidant that is believed to combat harmful free radicals in our bodies which can contribute to heart disease and cancer.

For more delicious cake recipes like this carrot cake recipe, click here.

Or return to our home page for more vegetarian food ideas.