Classic Carrot Cake / My blog turns 1

YES!!!I am soo soo excited to say that my blog has turned 1 year old today... it all started when I started taking food photos of the new recipes I tried to show it to my mom, who lives far away from me. And then, one fine day my husband suggested that I should start a blog, to store all the food snaps with the recipes, which would make it easier for me to refer in future and thus my blog 'Faiza Ali's Kitchen' was born.Firstly I want to thank my husband for introducing me to this blogging world and helping me through it. And my sincere thanks my Mom and Mom-In-Law from whom, I have learned most of my cooking. And Also I would like to thank Lubna baaji of Yummy Food for taking out her precious time for helping me to create a menu bar for my blog..Thanks a lot dear.
Through blogging I made so many friends from around the globe, who visit my blog regularly and encourage me with their kind and lovely comments. I had never imagined in my wildest dreams that in 1 year I will have 135 readers/ followers. I am really thankful to all my fellow bloggers and friends who encourage me, it is the love and kindness you all shower on my blog that keeps it going. Thank you friends :-)
Now coming to today's recipe, I baked this classic carrot cake, which I learned from the book ''cakes and cake decorating ''. Last month my fellow blogger and friend Shabs of Shab's Cuisine had mailed to inform me that there is a huge sale on recipe books at WHSmith. I went to the store the very next day to grab some recipe books. And among the books, that I bought was this book''Cakes and cake decorating'' by Angela Nilson, Sarah Maxwell and Janice Murfitt. I never get tied of looking at those lovely cakes in my book everyday :D it has 200 recipes for beautiful cakes and the best part is the price I bought the book for. The original price of this book is £14.99 and I payed only £ 3.50 for this brand new book which was on a sale(smiles).
There are so many beautiful cakes to bake in this book, but I decided to start with a simple carrot cake and I decorated it with cute lil carrots made using the marzipan.And Yes, this is the first time, I was trying my hands on marzipan. And Voila !!1 here are the results. So, without further ado here is the recipe for the carrot cake.
CLASSIC CARROT CAKE

Ingredients:
225 grams / 1 cup of caster sugar,
20 ml /1 scant cup of vegetable oil,
225 grams / 2 cups of self-rising wholemeal flour,
1 tsp ground cinnamon,
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg,1 cup ground walnuts,
grated zest and juice of 1 orange,
3-4 finely grated carrot- squeezed dry,
4 eggs and
1/2 tsp of salt

For the Frosting:
225 grams / 1 cup of cream cheese,
30 ml /2 tbsp of clear honey,1 tbsp of orange juice,
50 grams of marzipan,
orange food colouring,
angel hair spaghetti and
green food colouring.
Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 180 Celsius / 350 Fahrenheit. Grease a 8 inch round cake tin, line the base with greaseproof paper and grease the paper. Beat the sugar, eggs, oil, orange zest and orange juice together until light and frothy. Sift the dry ingredients- flour, salt and spices in another bowl and add to the frothy egg mixture and beat for a further minute. Stir in the carrots and the groud walnuts and spon the mixture into the prepared tin. bake for 50-60 minutes or until risen and a toothpick or a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Meanwhile make the icing. to make the icing, beat the cheese, honey and 1 tbsp of orange juice together until smooth. Chill for 30 minutes to firm up.Break the angel hair spaghetti into 2 1 inch pieces and soak in green food colouring for 5-10 minutes. dry them on a paper towel until ready to use.Tint the marzipan with orange food colouring to resemble the colour of carrots. Break small pieces and roll between your palms to form small carrot shapes.using a small knife, press marks around the sides and stick 2 small pieces if the spaghetti in the top of each one to resemble the stalks.
Spread the icing over the top of the cooled cake. Arrange the carrots around the cake or in a bunch, in the centre of the cake.


Note:This cake can be served with a simple dusting of icing sugar on the top if one doesn't like like cream cheese icing. Also the recipe asked for Angelica as stalk for the carrot, which i could find here, So, i used the spaghetti as stalk.