Pistachio Carrot combo

It's Friday today and I'm counting down the hours until the weekend. (Currently 10 hrs 40 mins). Waiting for two days of freedom from lessons, slow mornings and being able to read my book way way longer in the evening, knowing I won't have to get up at the crack of dawn!

So, back to the matter in hand, which is of course - CAKE! Last weekend I made my Mum's carrot cake recipe to greet my Dad with as he arrived home. Since the walnut jar had but 2 baby walnut halves in it, I improvised and swapped in pistachios! Oooh it was good.

Never again will I use walnuts as the vibrant green of these nuts makes the cake so much more tempting as well as creating a fantastic texture that is both moist and fluffy as well as the odd burst of crunch.

Ingredients

3 eggs

175g caster sugar

175g plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

170 ml sunflower oil

170g pistachios

2 ripe bananas (mashed)

3 medium carrots (grated)

Icing

170g softened butter

75g cream cheese

150g icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170C. and line a large circular cake tin (20cm diameter).

2. Beat the eggs and sugar until thick.

3. Add the flour, bicarb, baking powder and salt and mix well.

4. Measure in the oil then add the nuts, bananas and carrots.

5. Combine and then pour into the prepared tin.

6. Bake for around 1 hour until the top has gone golden brown.

7. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

1. For the icing, beat together all of the ingredients until think and smooth.

2. Spread over the cake and top with more pistachios!

ENJOY!

My cat moving in for the kill!

Bird's eye view