The Best Carrot Coconut Cake with Lemon Frosting

This is one of the rare recipes that I have been making over and over again during the past years. I discovered the recipe in an old Good Food issue lying around in the coffee room at work in London, copied it out and then promptly forgot it. After returning to Germany I found the recipe again and gave it a try. Since then I must have made it at least a dozen times. It might not seem a lot for a period of 7 years but, trust me, for me it is.

It was one of the first cakes I have ever made. At least one of the first cakes that really worked and tasted good. You can make it easily, no matter how experienced a baker you are and you will be sure to impress everybody. I mean, look at that color, who needs a fancy decorated cake, when you have a color like that without any extra effort.

And it does taste amazing, I have yet to find anybody who didn’t like it. It is unbelievably moist, it tastes of carrots and coconut and has a wonderful lemon flavor due to the lemon glaze, which trickles into the cake through the wholes you will have to poke into it after it’s baked. Store the cake airtight and it will remain moist and delicious for several days.

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Carrot Coconut Cake

Rating  5.0 from 1 reviews

Prep time:  20 mins

Cook time:  60 mins

Total time:  1 hour 20 mins

Serves: 1 loaf cake

Ingredients

• 280 g/ 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 200 g/ 1 cup granulated sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 organic lemons, one for the cake and one for the frosting
• 200 ml/ 1 cup without 2 tablespoons sunflower oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 280 g/ 9.9 oz carrots, finely grated
• 100 g/ 3.5 oz desiccated coconut, unsweetened
• 150 -175 g/ 1 ½ – 1 ¾ cups icing sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius/ 360 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter a loaf tin.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the sugar.
3. Beat the eggs in a medium bowl. Add the zest and the juice of only 1 of the lemons. Add the sunflower oil and the vanilla extract, then carefully fold in the flour mixture.
4. Add the finely grated carrots and the coconut to the mixture and pour everything into the prepared tin. Bake for about 50 to 60 minutes until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
5. For the frosting mix the juice and zest of the second lemon with enough icing sugar to form a paste. The amount of sugar needed depends on how large and juicy your lemon is. The paste should be runny enough to be easily spread on the cake and to be able to sicker into the wholes you poked into the cake.
6. So prick the top of the cake with a toothpick all over and pour over the frosting. Let the cake cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

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