Chai Spiced Carrot Cake

Chai Spiced Carrot Cake | The Mother Cooker

If I had to pick once cake to eat forever, it would be carrot cake. I love the balance of spices, texture and sweetness. It's taken me years to make my own, I really don't know why. I think maybe I was intimidated because I love it so much. It was the same with my lemon meringue pie. Alas. after perfecting this pear and parsnip cake, I decided to model this carrot cake on it. It's virtually the same ingredient list, just with a few tweaks.

Making this in the heat was a riot though. Cream cheese melts pretty quickly it turns out. Make sure you stick your icing in the fridge and do it just before serving. Otherwise it will end up looking like pouring cream. If you make it, I really hope you like it and as always would love your feedback. Anything missing? Anything you'd add more of? Let me know over on Instagram.

Chai Spiced Carrot Cake

Serves: 6-8Prep time: 12 minsCook time: 25 minsTotal time: 37 mins (plus cooling)

INGREDIENTS
  • 300g plain flour
  • 100g white sugar
  • 100g dark brown sugar
  • 4 eggs, room temperature
  • 80g plain yoghurt
  • 2 tbsp chai spice (see recipe below)
  • 2 tsp vanilla bean extract
  • 240ml vegetable oil
  • 100g raisins
  • 100g mixed nuts, finely chopped
  • 3 carrots, grated (around 130g)
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • Half tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • Mixture of nuts, finely chopped (for topping)
  • 260g cream cheese
  • 6 tbsp icing sugar
  • FOR THE CHAI:
  • 2 tsp cardamom
  • 2 tsp nutmeg
  • 2 tsp all spice
  • 2 tsp cloves
  • 3 tsp cinnamon
  • 3 tsp ginger
  • 1 tsp coconut sugar (optional)
DIRECTIONS
  1. Make Chai mix if you haven’t prepped ahead. Set aside. Pre heat oven to 180c, gas mark 4, 350f.
  2. Grease, line and dust two 9 inch spring bottom baking tins. Shaking off excess flour.
  3. Add flour, salt, chai, bicarb, baking powder to a bowl, mix and set aside.
  4. Grate carrots and add to flour bowl with nuts and raisins, mix in.
  5. In another bowl, whisk together oil, yoghurt, sugars, eggs and vanilla.
  6. Add wet ingredients to dry and mix until fully combined.
  7. Tip equally in to the two tins and bake for 25-30 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean. 25 minutes was perfect for me. Remove cakes from the oven and set on a wire rack in the tins. Leave to cool for ten mins before removing from the tins to cool completely.
  8. For frosting, mix cream cheese with icing sugar on a high speed until thick, keep in the fridge until ready.
Bakingbaking, Cake, carrot cake, carrots, Eat May, May, Spring, Summer