This is so much fun to make with children as there is so many different things they can do and get involved with, from grating, to measuring, to pouring, to spreading, to stirring…all sorts of useful fine motor skills being developed through one very easy recipe. However, don’t expect to get through any of this recipe without large amounts of the ingredients to be consumed before anything is actually baked or iced!!! eek!!! its just too yummy!!
Weirdly, it was international carrot day (???!!!) earlier this month, 4th April, which just happened to be when we made this carrot cake!!! (I later read this strange fact!!! what a coincidence!!!)
what you need…
- 200g carrots
- 175g soft brown sugar
- 200g self raising flour
- 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
- 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
- zest 1 orange (although we used a lemon because no oranges in the house, and still turned out to be delicious!!!)
- 2 eggs beaten
- 150ml of sunflower oil
- 50g of unsalted softened butter
- 75g icing sugar
- 120g cream cheese
- decorations
- mixing bowl
- weighing scales
- grater
- zester
- 18cm square cake tin (although I only had a round one!!! which still worked fine!!)
- wooden spoon
- teaspoon
what you do…
- preheat the oven to 180c and grease the cake tin
- grate the carrots finely into a large mixing bowl
- add the sugar, flour, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon to the carrot
- add the zest of the orange and mix everything together
- add the beaten eggs and pour in the oil to the mixture
- mix everything together really well
- spoon the mixture into the cake tin
- bake for about 30 minutes or until its cooked through
- leave to cool
- in the meantime make the topping!!!
- mix the butter, icing sugar and cream cheese until smooth
- when the cake is cool, spread the topping over the cake!!!
- we then decorated our cake with flowers and wrapped a green ribbon round the edge!!!
- soooooooo yummy!!!
then into a little dream adventure…
- what other delicious cakes can you make using fruit or vegetables?
- lemon? courgette? apple? orange and ginger?
- try making the banana cake recipe previously written up at www.placeoflittledreams.com/banana-cake-day/
- grow some carrots in the garden
- count with carrots
- cut them up into carrot sticks, highlighting whole, half and quarter
- which animals like eating carrots!!!
- carrots were originally white or purple!!!
- carrots are one of the best sources of beta carotene which the body turns into vitamin A which is important for our vision, hence the saying ‘carrots help you see in the dark!’
- carrots can be eaten in a variety of ways – mashed, boiled, pureed, steamed, grated, fried, steamed, stewed, baked, juiced or simply eaten raw…maybe try out a few of these different ways, and see which one you and your kiddies enjoy the most!!!
