Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 2 1/2 t. baking powder
- 1 1/4 t. baking soda
- 2 t. ground cinnamon
- 1 t. ground allspice
- 1 t. ground ginger
- 1/2 t. salt
- 4 eggs
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 2 T. honey
- 1 1/4 cup canola oil
- Juice of one orange
- Zest of one orange, minced
- 17 oz. peeled grated carrots (aprox. 3 cups)
- 1 1/2 oz. (aprox 6 pieces) candied ginger cut in thin pieces
- 1 cup walnut pieces
- 1 cup golden raisins
Preparation
- Start heating the oven to 325° F.
- Butter and flour a 10″ Bundt pan.
- Sift together first 7 ingredients in a small bowl.
- With an electric mixer, beat sugars and eggs in a large bowl until light and fluffy.
- On low speed add honey and 1/3 of dry ingredients.
- Continuing on low speed, add oil and 1/3 of dry ingredients.
- Still on low speed, add orange juice and the remaining dry ingredients.
- Fold in remaining items.
- Bake approximately one hour.
- Cool in pan 20 minutes. Turn onto wire rack to finish cooling.
- Frost with cream cheese icing – see below.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 8 oz. package cream cheese
- 3 cups confectioners sugar
- Zest of one orange – minced
- Beat cream cheese and sugar.
- Fold in zest.
Notes
- I’m not that fond of most cakes, but I do love carrot cake. When I’m in a restaurant and am in the mood for a desert I often order carrot cake. Because of this, I have tasted lots of great carrot cake. This is the best carrot cake I have ever eaten. I am not a great chef (in fact the Bear hates my cooking) and you will notice that most of my recipes have less than 5 ingredients. But this recipe is worth the trouble.
- Regarding candied ginger. I didn’t have any idea what candied ginger was when I decided to tackle this recipe. After surfing the net, I discovered that you can buy it in small jars in the spice section of large supermarkets. However, it is quite expensive and I couldn’t find it in my local market. A cheaper option is the health food grocery stores. They sell candied ginger in the section of the store where the bulk food bins are located. In my case, I found it at Whole Foods grocery store in the wall of bins with rice, flour, nuts, and carob candy. It looks a little like dried pineapple chunks.
- Orange zest is the orange part of the orange. Peel just the orange part off (it’s a very thin layer). Try not to take the white layer underneath the orange with it.