Sugar and spice

Celebrate Mother's Day with these delicious dessert recipes

- ALI GRAVES

Carrot, spice & candied ginger cake

SERVES 8-10

Ingredients

150g plain flour

150g caster sugar

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp fine sea salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

100g walnuts, roughly chopped

100g stem ginger in syrup, roughly chopped

250g carrots, grated

150ml light olive oil or sunflower oil

3 eggs, beaten

For the frosting

250g mascarpone

3 tbsp icing sugar, sifted

2-3 tbsp stem ginger syrup

Walnuts, to decorate

1. Grease a 22cm deep, loose-bottomed cake tin and line the base with baking parchment.

2.  Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas mark 4. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, spices, salt, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Mix through the walnuts and stem ginger, then the carrot. 

3.  Make a well in the middle and add the olive oil and eggs. Mix together to make an even batter. Turn into the cake tin and level the surface.

4. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the cake is golden and firm to the touch, its sides beginning to shrink away from the tin. Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the tin, then loosen with a blunt knife and turn onto a rack to cool completely.