Recipe: Stupidly Easy Carrot Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting {Food Processor Does All The Work!}

Summary: Are you ever just laying around in you pj’s just craving cake? Oh good, it’s not just me! I wanted to make a nice, easy cake with loads of frosting and not have to leave the house for ingredients. Carrot cake isn’t usually on the top of my list but there were so many nice carrot cakes in my Instagram feed over Easter and somehow it’s just stayed on my mind. Plus we had loads of carrots to use up and cream cheese in the fridge. It was Saturday afternoon fait accompli! I came up with a plan for the easiest possible carrot cake with all the things we like and none we don’t. And remember, I wasn’t going out for ingredients! So I swapped the traditional walnuts for almonds, dialled down the cinnamon a bit and found lift without using more than two eggs.

The best part is that food processor does all the heavy lifting for you! Just whizz, bake and frost. I love that you don’t have to grate carrots and make a big mess. This was honestly so simple, easy and fuss free! I kept the frosting simple too. I took the cream cheese out to soften before I started on the cake batter and by the time the cake was baked and cool enough to frost, the cream cheese was ready. You can always put the cream cheese nearby to the oven as you go. I didn’t pipe but I did cut the cake into two layers and slapped the frosting on! Mr Ask and I loved this version of carrot cake! As usual, I share a piece or two with my Mum and Sister who both told me (in separate conversations) that is was the best carrot cake they’d eaten because it was perfectly to our tastes! So if you want to use walnuts and add more cinnamon, have at it! Just know that this is the easiest carrot cake you will ever make!

Ingredients

• 400g carrots, peeled & chopped
• 120g raw almonds
• 180g brown sugar
• 110g castor sugar
• 225g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 125ml vegetable oil
• 70g sour cream
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste

Frosting

• 250g cream cheese softened
• 60g butter, softened
• 500g icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 lemon, zest only

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 160°C and line and grease a 20cm (8”) spring form cake tin.
2. Place the carrot and almonds in a food processor and process until finely chopped.
3. Add the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, brown sugar, caster sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, oil, eggs and yoghurt, and process, scraping down the bowl until combined.
4. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for 55–60 minutes or until just cooked when tested with a skewer. Allow to cool in the tin for at least 30 minutes before removing from the tin.
5. Once the cake is completely cooled, you can cut it into two layers. I find this method the easiest way to cut into even halves but I didn’t bother to level the top. But it’s perfectly okay to leave it single layer if you want but you might want to frost the sides as well as the top to ensure that you get all that icing goodness!
6. To make the cream cheese frosting: Place the cream cheese, butter, icing sugar, lemon zest and vanilla in a food processor and process until smooth. Spread the frosting over the cooled cake to serve.
7. Serves 10–12.