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halloween carrot cake
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Halloween Traybake

Total Time1 hour
Servings: 12 -16

Notes

Carrot Cake with Ghoulish Halloween Frosting

Carrot Cake with Ghoulish Halloween Frosting

You'll need
  • 300g carrots
  • 225g self raising flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • pinch salt
  • Zest of 1/2 lemon
  • 200g muscavado sugar
  • 75g chopped nuts - I used hazelnuts as I had some handy
  • 3 eggs
  • 150 Lurpak Cooking Liquid
  • 200g cream cheese - full fat or it will be too runny
  • 150g icing sugar
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • orange food colouring - to suit your taste
  • 100g dark chocolate - at least 80% cocoa solids
To make it
  1. Preheat the oven to 180C.
  2. Squirt a little of the cooking liquid into a traybake tin about 25cm x 20cm x 5cm and smear all over. Then line with some greaseproof paper
  3. Grate the carrots and set aside.
  4. Beat the eggs and set aside.
  5. Sieve the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt into a large mixing bowl  and mix together.
  6. Add the sugar, nuts and lemon zest and mix til the lumps of sugar have disappeared.
  7. Add the eggs and grated carrots and mix.
  8. Pour the mixture into the traybake tin and bake for 45 minutes.  A cocktail stick inserted into the middle should come out clean when it's ready.
  9. While it's baking you can make the chocolate decorations and ghoulish topping.
  10. Put three quarters of the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of boiling water and leave it til it melts.
  11. Take it off the heat and stir in the rest of the chocolate. This helps to cool it down.  Give it all a good mix to cool it down and thicken slightly for piping easily.
  12. Take a sheet of baking paper and pipe on shapes of your choice.  I made some very easy spiders and cobwebs.  Leave to harden.
  13. For the frosting, mix together the cream cheese, lemon juice, orange colouring and icing sugar until you have a nice smooth mixture.  If it's too runny, add more icing sugar or pop it in the fridge to firm up.
  14. Once the cake has baked, pop it on a wire rack to cool completely and then cut into squares.
  15. Spoon over the icing and top with your chocolate shapes.
Voila - easy Halloween half term baking.  As an alternative, use grated beetroot instead of the carrots with a white topping with a little beet juice for a bloody effect.