Semolina Carrot Cake

I was baking a chocolate cake (I have yet to pour the chocolate topping on, so bear with me, recipe coming up soon!) for my sister’s friend today and as I already had the oven on , I thought I’d just put another one in for myself. I’ve been wanting to make a carrot cake for a while. I got the idea of experimenting with half semolina and half flour. It became a denser cake and was much more filling.

This cake is easy and does not take much time in preparation. You can always opt out of the syrup and just add about 50g more sugar in the dough. Adding some rose water to the syrup might have been nice too but I didn’t have any rose water. I might try it next time.

Ingredients

Cake:
200g plain white flour
250g semolina
2 teaspoons baking soda
150g demerara sugar
Pinch of salt
220 ml vegetable oil
350 ml water
6 tablespoons vinegar (cider vinegar is best)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2-3 carrots (grated)

Syrup (optional):
5 tablespoons demerara sugar
130 ml water

Preheat oven at 180 degrees Celsius

For the cake mixture:

• Mix all the dry ingredients together. Then mix all the wet ingredients together except for the carrots. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry, stirring gently with a spoon until they mix completely. Do not beat the mixture.
• Add the grated carrots. Stir and mix well.
• Pour the cake mixture in a greased rectangular dish approximately 23 cm x 30 cm x 6 cm (9x12x2.4 inch)
• Bake in oven for 45min. Test whether the cake is ready by inserted a metal rod in the cake. If it comes out dry, it's done. Otherwise, allow to cook for another 5-10 minutes until done.
• Leave the cake to cool in the dish for half an hour.

For the syrup:

• Place the sugar and the water in a pan. Allow to thicken on low heat.
• Pour the syrup on top of the cake.

Cut and serve.