Carrot and Ginger Cake

National Carrot Cake Day!

I had some Spanish helpers to make this delicious cake. It was supposed to be made in 4 pans and layered with the frosting, but I don't have 4 pans so I figured just put it all in one and it would take longer but still cook all the way, right? Wrong. It was raw in the middle after 60 min of cooking! But, hey, who does not like half baked things? A friend of mine in Boston and I always made cookies or brownies and only cooked them 70-80% of the way done.
From: The Hummingbird Bakery: Cake Days

Ingredients:

• Cake:
• 450 g (1 lb) peeled and finely grated carrots
• 2 TBSP peeled and graded root ginger
• 80 ml (3 fl oz) buttermilk
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 350 ml (12 fl oz) vegetable oil
• 420 g (15 oz) caster sugar
• 500 g (1 lb 2 oz) plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) (or 3x baking powder)
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 80 g (3 oz) pecans, roasted and chopped
• Frosting:
• 100 g (3 1/2 oz) unsalted butter, softened
• 600g (1 lb 5 oz) icing sugar
• 1 TBSP finely grated orange zest (I used a whole orange because the zest in frosting is delicious)
• 250 g (9 oz) full-fat cream cheese

Directions:
1) Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas mark 3.
2) Line the baking tin with baking parchment (4 8 in circle tins is what you are supposed to use...I just used the 1 spring form [probably 9 in] tin that I had)
3) Mix the carrots, root ginger, buttermilk, eggs, vanilla essence, vegetable oil and sugar until well combined.




4) Sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt, ground cinnamon and ground ginger.







5) Slowly add and mix to the egg and carrot mixture in three batches.
6) Stir in the chopped pecans.
7) Stir until smooth.
 8) Divide the batter between the 4 pans and cook for 30 minutes until the top bounces back when pressed (or don't divide and just guess the time/watch)

9) Mix the butter and icing sugar until combined (it will still be powdery in consistency).
10) Add the orange zest and cream cheese (we put the cream cheese in the microwave because we were having issues with mixing it with it being cold) and mix until combined.
11) When the cake is cool, add the frosting.