My good friend Anneca loves carrot cake, in fact it’s her favourite. When we decided to host a surprise meal for her birthday last week, it seemed like the natural choice to make.

This is a really simple recipe, although it took me AGES to grate the carrots. If you can, try and buy them already prepared (I’ve checked this is actually a thing!) or blend them in a food processor.

This cake takes a while in the oven too, so along with prep time, I’d say you’ll need about two hours.

Luckily Anneca loved her cake, judging by the happy faces, it looks like the other guests did too!

Ingredients:

Cake:

• 450ml/16fl oz vegetable oil
• 400g/14oz plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 550g/1lb 4oz sugar
• 5 free-range eggs
• 2½ tsp ground cinnamon
• 525g/1lb 3oz grated carrots

Topping:

• 200g/7oz cream cheese
• 150g/5½oz caster sugar
• 100g/3½oz softened butter

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 160C/325F/Gas 3. Grease and line a 26cm/10in springform cake tin.

2. Mix all the ingredients (apart from the carrots) together in a bowl.
3. Add the grated carrots and stir.
4. Pour the mixture in the cake tin and time for 1 hour and 30 mins. After this time, check that the cake is ready by putting a knife/skewer in the middle. If it is clean the cake is fully baked. Take it out of the oven and leave to cool.
5. For the icing, add all the icing ingredients together in a separate bowl and stir. After the cake has cooled, spread on the icing.
6. Grate half a carrot on the icing for that last minute bit of detail and enjoy! This bake  tastes great served on it’s own.