Lighter spiced carrot cake

All the joy of baking with healthier results! This traybake uses sweet potato for natural sweetness and lower fat frosting

Prep:30 mins
Cook:30 mins
Plus cooling

Easy

Nutrition per serving

kcal 269
fat 10g
saturates 1g
carbs 38g
sugars 25g
fibre 3g
protein 6g
salt 0.4g

Ingredients

125ml rapeseed oil, plus a little extra for greasing
300g wholemeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp mixed spice
100g dark soft brown sugar
140g carrots, grated
140g sweet potatoes, peeled and grated
200g sultanas
2 large eggs
4 tbsp agave syrup
juice 2 oranges
200g Quark
50g fromage frais
3 tbsp icing sugar, sifted
zest 1 orange

Tip

How we made it healthier
Healthy bakes can sometimes be a little dry as they contain less fat. Adding grated veg is a great way to combat this. As well as carrots, we added sweet potatoes – which also have the benefit of naturally sweetening the batter, allowing us to reduce the sugar. Soaking the sponge in extra fruit juice once it’s baked also helps to keep it moist. We still needed a little fat, so we used rapeseed oil, which is a healthier alternative to butter or sunflower oil.

Method

Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease and line a 20 x 30cm traybake tin with baking parchment. Mix together the flour, baking powder, bicarb, spice and sugar in a big mixing bowl. Stir in the grated carrots, sweet potatoes and sultanas. In a jug, whisk together the eggs, rapeseed oil, agave syrup and juice from 1 orange. Tip the wet ingredients into the bowl and stir to combine, then scrape into the tin. Bake for 25-30 mins until a skewer poked in comes out clean. Prick all over with a skewer and drizzle over the remaining orange juice. Cool in the tin.
Once cool, make the icing. Stir the quark with a spoon to make it a bit smoother, then fold in the fromage frais, icing sugar and orange zest. Spread all over the cake and slice into squares to eat.