Delicious Rustic Carrot and Walnut Cake (with Gluten free option)

Last week I made this delicious, moist and rustic carrot and walnut cake and I thought I would share it with you all. The recipe was adapted from a Donna Hay one and if you like really moist, rustic cakes, this is for you! Plus, it has carrot and walnuts in it, so that makes it healthy enough to afford second and third helpings, right?

Ingredients

♥ 1 1/14 cups brown sugar

♥ 3/4 cup vegetable oil

♥ 3 eggs

♥ 1 1/2 cups plain flour (GF plain flour works well in this recipe)

♥ 1/4 cup almond meal

♥ 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

♥ 2 1/2 cups grated carrot (about 5 carrots)

♥ 1 cup chopped walnuts

Frosting

♥ 250g cream cheese, softened

♥ 1/2 cup icing sugar

♥ 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C. Place the sugar and oil in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 2–3 minutes. Add the eggs gradually and beat well. Sift the flour and cinnamon over the wet mixture. Add the carrot and walnuts and mix until just combined. Pour into a greased 22cm-round cake tin lined with non-stick baking paper and bake for 55–60 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Cool in tin.

For the cream cheese frosting, beat the cream cheese with an electric mixture in a large bowl for 1-2 minutes. Add the icing sugar and lemon juice and beat until smooth. Spread frosting on the cooled cake and decorate with nuts and a sprinkling of cinnamon.

8 things i've learned so far this year...

source

1. Home really is where the heart is

2. You can't let bills & housework stress you out

3. How to light a lighter

4. A lot can be achieved with some secondhand furniture and a tin of paint

5. How to duck dive a surfboard (sort of)

6. Exercise does a world of good… but so does rest!

7. Follow your heart

8. You're allowed to have more than one dream job

What have you learned so far this year?

Questions and Answers

1/ If you could teleport yourself this instant, where would you go?I'd go straight to Bali to see my mum. She is on holiday and I didn't realise how much I'd miss her! Then I'd head to the UK to fulfil the lifelong dream of being there and see my beautiful blogging friends.

2/ What kind of weather do you like the most and why?I love the summer. I'm a total summer baby, and living by the beach, it's nice when I get to enjoy it! Having said that, I am grateful that after our 8 month long summer, it has finally cooled down a bit here, and am enjoying hot chocolate, ugg boots and snuggles on the couch.

3/ What is your earliest memory?This is a hard one! I have so many early memories that I'm not sure if they are actual memories or if I just remember them from photographs. One that I'm pretty sure is real is shortly before my uncle committed suicide, he and his wife picked my sister and I up from our house and took us down to the beach. It wasn't a very sunny day, but we played on the sand with their dogs and had a really great time. My uncle threatened to pick us up by the ears and we ran off screaming as he made little pinching movement with his fingers. It is a precious memory because it's the only one I really have of my Uncle. He passed away when I was 4.

4/ What are you the most proud of?This is an awfully hard question, but I think that I'm proud of myself just for becoming the person I am. For dealing with bullies and chronic illness and depression and anxiety, for surviving living out of home on benefits, for being able to accept defeat when moving out the first time didn't work out and for having the courage to change career paths and study a demanding course just in the hopes of being able to have a fulfilling career one day, even though I am battling an autoimmune disease. I might not win any awards for these things, but I am proud of them!

5/ Describe yourself in five words.Stubborn, intelligent, messy, kind-hearted and strong.

6/ What parts of the world have you been to?I'm yet to explore the big, wide world any further than Sydney (800km south) and Brisbane (250km north).  For now, I'm quite content in my little part of the world with the people I love though.

7/ What is your signature homemade dish?Oooh, I don't know. I make spaghetti bolognese a lot but that's just because it's easy. Most of the dishes I make are really my mum's recipes so maybe I need to get creative and come up with my own?

8/ Swim, run, bike or walk (or roller skate)?Swim! I used to swim about 3km every day in summer and I miss it so much! I still swim in the ocean all the time, but I don't train anymore. I'll have to get back into training.

9/ What book character do you particularly relate to?I wish I could say Katniss Everdeen but that would be a blatant lie. I'd be the first dead in The Hunger Games. I'd say probably Hermione Granger. She is bookish and a bit of an outcast at the beginning of the Harry Potter series, like I was at the beginning of school, but she soon finds her two best friends and flourishes. I think Hermione and I share a lot of common traits.

10/ Handwrite or type?Type. Having mildly arthritic fingers makes holding a pen painful and I have writing like a doctor. It's awful!

11/ What are you grateful for this week?I'm grateful for my loving boyfriend, for my home, for kind-hearted bloggers and good friends, and for passionate activists in my community who proved the power of peaceful protest over the past month at the Bentley Blockade. 

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Thank you to Charlotte for nominating me to answer these questions and giving me a path back into writing posts! A question and answer post was just what I needed to reignite by blogging spark! I nominate Libby, Leona, Sophie, Amy, Tori and Bee to answer my questions:

1/ Where is your ideal home and what does it look like?

2/ What are your 5 dream pizza party guests?

3/ Favourite lines from a song?

4/ Who do you think you were in a past life?

5/ Best and worst books you have read?

6/ True vintage or knock off pieces?

7/ Which era would you most like to time travel to?

8/ Where does your blog inspiration come from? (and can I steal a little of it?)

9/ If you could jump inside the telly, which TV show would you choose to step into?

10/ Best childhood memory?

11/ Who are the three people you love the most?

I hope the girls are keen to take part and I really look forward to reading your answers!