Carrot and Sultana Cake with Banana Icing

One of the weirdest cake recipes I have ever seen was in a collection called 100 Years of Australian Country Cooking (1988) that I picked up in a garage sale with the kind of recipes that raise your eyebrows but, nevertheless, I find fascinating for their novelty value. Tempting dishes like Surprise Parsnip Pie and Mock Wild Duck Casserole (that contains beef and lambs kidney, but no duck) One particular recipe that caught my eye was for a beetroot cake with peanut butter icing - this was before the days of beetroot being trendy in everything, and I thought it very odd indeed.

Well, when I recently saw this carrot cake recipe I was immediately reminded me of the beetroot/peanut butter thingummy - must be the carrot with peanut butter in the cake and spicy banana icing on top. But, do you know what - it works!

This is a very versatile recipe, that I have tweaked to my taste, that can either be made into an iced afternoon teacake or into a slice that is great for children's lunch boxes.  It's a real hit with our growing brood of grandchildren - 7 and counting! (Leila, 10, said the icing tasted like banana milkshake!)

I'll give you the two versions and see what you think?

Carrot and Sultana Cake with Spiced Banana Icing

150 g crunchy peanut butter
1/2 cup of sunflower or other vegetable oil
250 g dark brown sugar
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
350 g freshly grated carrot
275 g sultanas
150 g glace ginger (optional)
100 g plain wholemeal flour (you can substitute this with almond meal)
150 g wholemeal self-raising flour
(for gluten free you can substitute with a third each of buckwheat/brown rice flour and fine polenta)
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1. Preheat oven to 180oC.  Line a 23cm round cake tin or loaf tin with non-stick paper.

2. Grate the carrots (I do this with the grater blade of the food processor - because I can!) then put them to one side.

3. In the good old food processor - that you don't need to wash after grating the carrots, beat the peanut butter, oil, sugar, ground ginger and milk until smooth then beat in the eggs.

4. Stir in the grated carrots, glace ginger, flour and bicarb until mixed.

5. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for about 45 minutes, or until a skewer poked in the middle comes out cleanly.  Leave to cool before icing.

Spiced Banana Icing

100 g butter

1 large ripe banana

1/2 tsp turmeric

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1 tbsp hulled tahini

75 g cream cheese

125 g icing sugar

1.  In the trusty food processor beat together the butter, spices, banana, cream cheese and tahini until smooth and creamy.  Add the icing sugar and mix until smooth.

2.  Spread over the cooled cake and chill before serving.

Carrot and Sultana Slice

(as in the photo at the top of the page)

1. Make the same recipe for the cake just omitting the ginger - usually not the favourite of children, and adding 1/2 cup of pecans instead, and have another half a cup for decorating the top.

2. You can ice this too - you just have to omit the pecans on top.

2. Bake for 30 minutes on 180oC or until skewer comes out clean.