Recipe: Emelia Jackson’s Carrot and Pecan Cake Is a “One-Bowl Smash Hit”

For Masterchef winner Emelia Jackson, the classics never go out of style. But when it comes to carrot cake – “another one-bowl smash hit” from her third book, You Had Me At Cake – she puts a spin on a dessert that sits firmly in her “top five favourite cakes.” 

“I know this is a controversial take, but I am not a fan of walnuts in my carrot cake,” she writes. “Stale walnuts, which they so often are, have a distinctively dusty flavour, which I think detracts from the cake.” 

Her solution? “Enter the pecan.” It’s a subtle swap that delivers texture without risking disappointment, proving that even the classics could use a little remix from time to time. To all the walnut stans, Jackson says leave out the pecans if you prefer.

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Carrot and pecan cake by Emelia Jackson

Serves 8-10
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes

Ingredients

150g plain flour
190g brown sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp salt
2 eggs
150ml light olive, rice bran or avocado oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
300g carrots, grated
140g pecans, roughly chopped

Cream cheese icing

250g cream cheese
100g icing sugar
300ml thickened cream
1 tsp vanilla bean paste

Method

Preheat the oven to 160°C fan-forced. Line the bases of two 20cm x 20cm round cake tins with baking paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, bicarb soda, ginger, nutmeg and salt. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the eggs, oil and vanilla extract and mix until just combined. Finally, fold through the grated carrots and chopped pecans, reserving about 15g of the nuts to garnish.

Divide the batter evenly between the cake tins and bake for 30–40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before turning them out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

For the cream cheese icing, combine the cream cheese and sugar in a large bowl and whisk until smooth. You can use an electric mixer or hand mixer to speed up this process. Once there are no lumps remaining, add the cream and vanilla and whip the mixture until stiff peaks form.

Place one of the cakes on a serving plate. Liberally top with half of the cream cheese icing, then place the second cake on top and repeat. Sprinkle with the reserved chopped pecans.

This is a lightly edited extract from You Had Me at Cake by Emelia Jackson. Published by Murdoch Books (RRP $39.99)