SMALL MIRACLES...

I've been trying to write this bleedin' post about my mum's carrot cake for ages. How to get across the importance of it to me without sounding overly sentimental or corny? I have no idea. The story goes like this:

My mum used to make this carrot cake. It was amazing. Everyone who sampled it thought so. She even made it for friends of mine she had never met on their birthdays and they remembered it years later. In the three years since my mother died I get asked quite often for the amazing carrot cake recipe. Well, I thought we were resolved, my mum and I. We'd had enough close calls to make sure we'd said everything people usually never actually tell each other. But for this one little thing. Not such bad going communication wise if that's the only thing that was left unsaid. And hardly a major priority in the scheme of things, but still I wished I had asked for it.

Then, last week a small miracle occured. At the home of my - oh let's just call her my cousin (she's my mum's sister's stepdaughter) I was flicking through the book on allotments she recently published. It's a gorgeous book, full of brilliant photographs of people's little plots of land along with practical advice and recipes to make with the food you've grown in your allotment. *Edit: and No 1 bestseller on Amazon no less!

Yes recipes. And there it was in glorious technicolour. My mum's carrot cake recipe.
Which of course was also passed on to her sister and then on to my cousin. I just didn't think of that before when I was tearing my father's house and my mother's recipe book collection apart, looking for a little scrap of paper with the recipe in her handwriting.

So here it is. Finally.

CARROT CAKE

6oz (175g) carrots
2 free range eggs
4oz (100g) raw brown sugar
3fl oz (75ml) oil
4oz (100g) 100% wholemeal self raising flour
1tsp (5ml) ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp (2.5ml) ground nutmeg
2oz (50g) dessicated coconut
2oz (50g) raisins

ORANGE ICING:

1.5oz (40g) butter or margarine
3oz (75g) raw brown sugar
grated rind of 1/2 an orange
1oz (25g) chopped shelled walnuts

Grease and line the base of a 7" (18cm) cake tin.
Finely grate the carrots.
Whisk the eggs and sugar together until thick and creamy.
Whisk in the oil slowly.
Add the remaining ingredients and mix together to combine evenly.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin.
Level the surface and bake in the oven at 190 c (375F/gas mark 5) for 20 -25 minutes until firm to the touch and golden brown. Cool on a wire tray.
Spread with icing when cold.
Icing: Beat the butter until soft. Beat in the sugar and orange rind. Spread over the cake and sprinkle with chopped walnuts.

Enjoy!