Yummy Carrot Cake

The lovely people at Whitworths sent me a box of their new sugars to try out - so I decided to make this yummy carrot cake! It was so moist, and had a great flavour. This is the first time that I have made a carrot cake and I was thrilled with how it turned out! I will certainly be making it again. It has vegetables in it - it counts as one of your 5 a day, right?

• 175g Whitworths light brown sugar
• 175ml sunflower oil
• 3 large eggs , lightly beaten
• 140g grated carrots (about 3 medium)
• 100g raisins
• grated zest of 1 large orange
• 175g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp grated nutmeg
  
  Frosting - 
  
  75g Whitworths superfine icing sugar 
  2 tablespoons orange juice
  
  
  Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4/fan 160C. Oil and line the base and sides of an 18cm square cake tin with baking parchment.
  
   Tip the sugar into a large mixing bowl, pour in the oil and add the eggs. Lightly mix with a wooden spoon. Stir in the grated carrots, raisins and orange rind.
    
  Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices, then sift into the bowl. Lightly mix all the ingredients - when everything is evenly amalgamated stop mixing. The mixture will be fairly soft and almost runny. 
  
  Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40- 45 minutes, until it feels firm and springy when you press it in the centre. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn it out, peel off the paper and cool on a wire rack. (You can freeze the cake at this point.) 
  
  Beat together the frosting ingredients in a small bowl until smooth - you want the icing about as runny as single cream. Set the cake on a serving plate and boldly drizzle the icing back and forth in diagonal lines over the top, letting it drip down the sides.
  
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  Disclosure: I'm working with Whitworths Sugar, whose www.whitworths-sugar.co.uk site includes ideas and recipes for baking with sugar. Follow the conversation on Twitter with the #bakingS0S hash tag and @WhitworthsSugar.