No Faff Carrot Cake

No faffing about just mix it all in a bowl. Delicious. Best seller at our school fair every year!

If you don't have a food processor to grate those carrots for you, yes, ok, a litlle bit of faffing will be required :-)

• Cake
• 125g (4½oz) self-raising flour
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 125g (4½oz) soft brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 100ml (3½fl oz) sunflower oil
• 125g (4½oz) carrot, peeled and finely grated
• 25g (1oz) desiccated coconut
• Topping
• 50g (1¾oz) butter, softened
• 50g (1¾oz) full fat soft cheese
• 225g (8oz) icing sugar, sieved
• 1 tsp lemon juice

1. Line a 20 cm (8”) square cake tin with slightly greased baking parchment.

2. Sieve the flour, salt and ground cinnamon into a large bowl (to be perfectly honest, I don't sieve, I just put it in) and stir in the brown sugar. Add the eggs and oil to the dry ingredients and mix well.

3. Stir in the grated carrot and desiccated coconut.

4. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in a preheated oven, 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4, for 20-25 minutes or until just firm to the touch. Leave to cool in the tin.

5. Meanwhile, make the topping. In a bowl, beat together the butter, full fat soft cheese, icing sugar and lemon juice until the mixture is fluffy and creamy.

6. Turn the cake out of the tin and cut into 12 bars or slices. Spread with topping (you might want to pop it into the fridge for a few minutes for the topping to set).

Use full fat soft cheese as the low fat varieties tend to make the topping a bit too sloppy.