Ammar.. and a Carrot Cake Recipe

It was Ammar's 2nd birthday yesterday (22nd of October) and his father's birthday was 3 days earlier (19th of October). So here's wishing both of them:

Here are some pics of Ammar:

Made with PicsArt

Loves the trampoline..

A..huh! Eating before paying..

Ammar's happy face (rarely caught on camera)

After baby had his bath, these two decided they'll fit in the tub, too...

Going out in cold weather to send big brother to school

Happy time on the swing

Eating his favourite food - fruity yogurt (messy eater this one..)

Ammar and his birthday (carrot) cake - because he loves carrot so much! (unfortunately he loves it more in a soup than in a cake... nevertheless he enjoyed the frosting,,)

Carrot cake that I made for Ammar

I'd like to share this recipe that I probably got off the internet (I've got it in my list of carrot cake recipes for like ages) and I'd normally give credit but unfortunately I didn't keep the links.. Anyway, the recipe is extremely simple to make and I'm posting it so that the daughter-in-law can refer to if she wants to make it. (she enjoyed the cake but picked out the walnut as the baby's tummy kept rumbling after feeding after she ate it with the nuts..)

Carrot Cake  

• 2 cups self-rising flour (there was no self-raising flour in the house so I googled: to make SR flour you mix/sieve 1 cup plain flour to 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Therefore in this case I sieve 2 cups plain flour with 2 1/2 teaspoon BP and 1/2 teaspoon salt) 

• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (maybe 1 teaspoon will do..) 

• 1 1/2 cups white sugar (the original recipe called for 2 cups and I thought it might be too sweet so I used less) 

• 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil 

• 4 eggs 

• 3 cups grated carrots 

• 1 cup chopped walnuts (omit this if you like)

Frosting 

• 1 (225g) package cream cheese 

• 1/2 cup margarine, softened 

• about 400 g icing sugar (less if you don't want it too sweet) 

• 1 cup chopped walnuts (in original recipe, this is mixed with the frosting but I used them for sprinkling only so I needed less walnuts) 

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease two 9 inch round cake pans (we don't have these so I used a rectangular Pyrex size as shown in picture above..)
2. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, cinnamon and sugar. Add the oil and eggs, mix until blended, then stir in the carrots and nuts. Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared pans (I used only one pan)
3. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes (it took longer for my cake because it was thicker.. so about 50 minutes will do or until a toothpick inserted came out clean - too long in the oven would dry out the cake) in the preheated oven. A toothpick inserted into the cake should come out clean. Cool cakes on wire racks before removing from pans.
4. To make the frosting, use the second set of ingredients. In a medium bowl, cream together the margarine and cream cheese, add the sugar and cream well. Stir in the nuts and vanilla. Use to fill and frost the cooled cake layers. (obviously I used the frosting on top of the cake only so had some left-over. It would be enough to cover the sides, too if you like)

Happy baking!