Carrot Cake

Yan's Mum's cute little 80s retro-style oven remains functional despite its old age. Instead of staying underutilized in her store room, I've decided to put it to good use, and tested my friend's carrot cake recipe today. Thus, killing two birds with one stone. It's a super easy recipe to handle, even for novice bakers. Just mix all ingredients in the same bowl and shove it into a pre-heated 180 deg C oven to bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes (note: baking time differs with different ovens, so you should always monitor the baking process, if you are using your oven for the first time for any recipe). The cake is fluffy in texture, not sweet and tasted healthy (as the recipe uses vegetable oil and has a low sugar content). I have omitted the frosting this time due to time constraint and lack of an electric mixer (as my KitchenAid is packed away at a rented storage place now). 

Here's the recipe (adapted from Marina Ismail's carrot cake recipe):

Ingredients

4 eggs (beat on medium speed for about 1 min to mix)

2 cups of grated carrots

3 cups of plain flour

1 cup of walnut (coarsely chopped)

1 cup of canned pineapple (diced)

1 1/3 cups of castor sugar

1 1/2 cups of olive oil

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon of salt

1 tablespoon of vanilla extract

Method

1. Pre-heat oven at 180 deg C. Line a 9-inch round pan with parchment paper.

2. Sift flour into a large bowl. Add baking powder

3. Add all ingredients into the bowl, except for eggs and walnut.

4. Fold beaten eggs into the mixture until incorporated

5. Add chopped walnut, and mix well.

6. Pour mixture into the cake pan

7. Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean