This cake is made with rapeseed oil, which makes it lighter.

Makes 10-12 mini cakes

You will need:
175 light brown sugar
175ml plain rapeseed oil
175g self-raising flour
3 eggs
3 carrots, grated
100g raisins
50ml Brandy
Zest of 1 orange
100g chopped pecans
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
50g desiccated coconut

Icing:
100g butter at room temperature
300g cream cheese
100g icing sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Equipment:
12 muffin whole pan lined with 12 muffin cases

Marinate the raisins in the brandy for at least 1 hour
Preheat the oven to 180 and line an 18cm cake tin
Mix the wet ingredients in a bowl (oil, eggs – beaten, raisins, carrots and zest) with the sugar
Combine the other ingredients in another bowl
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones, combine and pour into the prepared muffin cases
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean
Leave to cool
For the icing, beat the butter until creamy, add the rest of the ingredients and beat until thoroughly combined and smooth
Spread the icing on top of the mini cakes

We decorated ours with carrot flowers. These are very easy to make. Simply use a peeler and slice carrots (orange, purple or/and yellow) into thin long strips. If they are too wide, simply cut in half lengthways. Blanch in salted boiling water for 30 seconds to soften them and make them more pliable. Leave to cool and roll up to create the flowers. We used chervil for the leaves.