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carrot cake traybake on a serving board.
cookingwithmykids

Easy carrot cake traybake

A deliciously moist, tasty and easy carrot cake traybake recipe. It’s a good one for your little ones to help with as it all just gets mixed in one bowl.
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Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings: 16
Course: Afternoon tea
Cuisine: British
Calories: 301
Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 225 g (1 2/3 cups) self raising flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 150 g (3/4 cups) light muscovado sugar
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp mixed spice
  • 100 g ( 1 medium) carrot
  • 2 bananas
  • 2 eggs large
  • 150 ml (1/2 cups) sunflower oil
  • 50 g (1/2 cups) walnuts optional
For decoration
  • 175 g (1 1/2 cups) cream cheese
  • 50 g (1/4 cups) butter
  • 100 g (1/3 cups) icing / confectioners sugar
  • dash vanilla extract

Method
 

Preheat your oven to 180C / 160C Fan / 350F and grease and line an 18cm/7 inch square traybake tin with baking paper.
    Add everything to a mixing bowl
    1. Start by getting your kids to measure out the dry ingredients. We normally pop a small bowl onto our digital scales and the kids spoon out the flour, then sugar until we've got the right amount.
    2. You can measure out the baking powder, cinnamon and mixed spice, while your kids are doing the flour. Alternatively, you could get your kids to spoon them out, and then level out the top with their finger.
    3. Add all your dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl.
    4. Next, peel and grate the carrot and mash the bananas.
    5. Add the grated carrot and mashed banana to your mixing bowl.
    6. Now add the eggs. Get your kids to crack the eggs into a small bowl before adding them to your mixing bowl.
    7. Finally, add the sunflower oil. We find the easiest way of doing this is to use the ml setting on our digital scales. It's a great job for anyone wanting to practice their pouring skills.
    8. Add the oil to your mixing bowl.
    Mix everything together
    1. Once you've measured everything out, simply grab some wooden spoons and mix everything together.
    2. If you need to, use a spatula to scrape down the sides to make sure it all gets well mixed in.
    Bake the carrot cake traybake
    1. Get your kids to pour the cake batter into your prepared tin. Smooth down the top with a spatula.
    2. Bake your carrot cake traybake in the oven for 50-60 minutes.
    3. It's ready when it is starting to come away from the sides and a skewer or sharp knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.
    4. Remove the cake from the oven and leave it to cool in the tin for a few minutes before removing it from the cake tin and leaving it on a wire rack to cool completely.
    Decorate the carrot cake traybake
    1. measure the cream cheese, butter and icing sugar out and add them to a large mixing bowl or free-standing mixer.
    2. Mix the cream cheese frosting together with a hand held mixer, wooden spoons or the k paddle of your mixer. Keep mixing it for a few minutes until it's nice and smooth.
    3. Once your cake has cooled, spread the cream cheese frosting on top and smooth it down with a spatula.
    4. You can decorate the traybake with a few walnuts if you're using them.

    Notes

    If you don't have a square tin you can use an 8 inch round cake tin to make a carrot cake rather than a square traybake.
    If you want, you can add some chopped walnuts to your traybake. They'll add a nice bit of texture to your cake.