Coconut carrot cake recipe, mmm... scrumptious!

I had some almonds and hazelnuts leftover from the chocolate cake I made almost a month and a half ago so I'd been thinking of baking another since then. Those of you who are following this blog and my Twitter account would probably have heard of (and seen) my healthy carrot cake recipe, so I thought I'd try to vary it a little and make it somewhat naughtier!

So, here goes.

Ingredients:

200g corn oil (you can use any vegetable oil or if you can handle the cholesterol, butter)

200g brown sugar (you can reduce this a little if you wish, to about 150-175g)

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

4 small eggs (approximately 55g each)

200g wholemeal flour

2 teaspoons (10g) baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

50g dessicated coconut

200g carrots, grated

1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cloves

150g almond-hazelnut mix, grounded

Procedure:

1. Heat the oven to 180ºC and grease a cake tin with butter or oil.
2. Pour the corn oil into a large bowl. If using butter, melt it gently and leave to cool before pouring it in.
3. Stir in the sugar, vanilla essence, eggs, flour, baking powder, salt and the dessicated coconut.
4. Mix it well.
5. Add in the grated carrots, spices and the nuts.
6. Blend it all thoroughly.
7. Pour the mixture into the greased cake tin.
8. Bake on a lower rack at 180ºC for about 40 minutes.
9. Turn off the oven and leave the cake in there for a further 10 minutes.
10. If an inserted skewer comes out clean, it's done.
11. Leave to cool.
12. When cool, slide a thin spatula along the edges to loosen the cake before attempting to remove it from the mould.

This turned out really good. My son thinks it's the best carrot cake I've done!

Enjoy!