Bonfire night purple carrot cake.

Bonfire night purple carrot cake.

This time of year many supermarkets, farmers markets and greengrocers seem to have a supply of rainbow coloured heritage variety carrots. I have used them for rosti, roasted them slowly and even turned them into soup but for my money they make an amazing carrot cake. Slightly nuttier than the sweet orange carrot they pair well with the walnuts or pecans you can add to this dish if you’d like. My husband doesn’t like cheese so I add a simple orange icing drizzle to the top of my cake but if you’d prefer a more traditional topping then please feel free to add that.

Bonfire night purple carrot cake

• 175g light soft brown sugar
• 175ml sunflower oil
• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 140g grated purple carrot (about 3 medium)
• 100g walnuts or pecan nuts
• grated zest of 1 large orange
• 175g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp grated nutmeg (freshly grated if you can.)

Bonfire night purple carrot cake – how to …..

• Preheat the oven to 180 c or 160c fan
• Line an 18cm square tin with paper. I used a circular cake tin liner and that worked just as well.
• In a large bowl combine the sugar, oil and eggs.
• Stir in the grated carrot, nuts and zest the orange directly over the bowl to catch all the orange oils too.
• Sift the flour, bicarb and spices into the bowl and fold in until well mixed.
• Pour the runny batter into the prepared tin and place into the oven.
• Bake for 40  minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
• Allow to cool for a few minutes in the tin and then place onto a rack to finish cooling completely.

To make an orange drizzle take 2 tbsp of juice from the zested orange. Spoon in icing sugar and combine until you have the thickness of icing you’d prefer. Drizzle over the cooled cake. Put the kettle on and enjoy.

Light the blue touchpaper and stand well back.

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