Super Seed Carrot Cake
Ingredients
- for the cinnamon syrup
- 150g caster sugar
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 250ml water
- for the cake
- 1 x 250g pouch of merchant gourmet simply cooked super seed pouch
- 100g sultanas
- 1 orange, juice only
- 250 ml canola or sunflower oil
- 225 g muscovado sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 orange, grated zest only
- 250g carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
- 225g self-rising flour
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- a pinch of salt
- for the icing
- 250g mascarpone
- 1 orange, finely grated zest only
- 1 1/2 tsp lemon or orange juice
- 75g icing sugar, sifted
Preparation
For the cinnamon syrup: put the 150g caster sugar, ground cinnamon and cinnamon stick into a saucepan with 250ml water and stir over a gentle heat until the sugar has melted
Bring to a boil and then simmer gently until the syrup is thick enough to almost coat the back of a spoon, set aside for later
Preheat the oven to 180c
Grease and line 2 x 18cm sandwich cake tins
Start off by putting the sultanas and orange juice into a small saucepan and bring to the boil then turn down to a simmer for a few minutes, remove from the heat and leave the sultanas to cool in the juice
For the cake, whisk the oil and muscovado sugar together to combine, then whisk in the eggs, one at a time
Stir in the orange zest, carrots and drained sultanas
Sift the flour, cinnamon, ginger and a large pinch of salt together in a bowl with the pouch of super seeds, then add to the egg mixture and gently fold in
Divide the cake mixture between the pans and bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean
Remove from the oven and leave to cool
For the icing: beat all the ingredients together until smooth
Spread one-third of the icing over one cake and sandwich together with the other cake
Spread the remaining icing on top and sprinkle with the pecans
To serve, drizzle over some of the cinnamon syrup and cut into slices
