Carrot Cake

I'm trying to empty and clear the fridge and the pantry of some food stuff, which is a much welcomed move by my family who have been nagging that "my" food items were taking up so much space in the fridge. Among the things, I had an unopened small box of cream cheese and some tablespoons of hazelnuts, and the first thing that flashed through my mind when I saw these ingredients was carrot cake. I haven't had carrot cake in years now, so I decided to bake it. I made it with frosting but it is tasty without frosting as well (perhaps even healthier).

Ingredients:
2 cups grated carrots
1 2/3 cups flour
1 1/4 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1/3 cup chopped walnuts
1 tbs fresh grated ginger
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon


Frosting:
100 g cream cheese
40 g soft butter
1/2 cup icing sugar (adjust)
1 tsk vanilla sugar (or half a vanilla pod)
Chopped hazelnuts (or grated carrots for topping)

Method:
Sift all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Grate the carrots and ginger finely. Mix the carrots, ginger and nuts. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, one at a time, with the sugar until light and fluffy. Drizzle in the vegetable oil and beat. Now, add the carrot-nut mixture and mix until well combined. Sift and fold in the dry ingredients into the egg mixture. You need two cake moulds to bake this cake. Otherwise it will be very high and the chances are the it's still runny and raw in the middle when you take it out. Butter the sides of the two cake moulds. Place a parchment paper at the bottom. Spread the cake mixture equally. Bake the cake in a preheated oven at 175 C (350 F) at the lowest rack, for about 30-45 minutes or so, until it is firm and the inserted skewer comes out clean. Let the cake cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes in the cake mould and then turn it upside down when taking it out of the mould. Let the cake cool completely before icing the cake.

For the frosting, whisk together all the above mentioned ingredients and spread it evenly on top of the cake and garnish with chopped hazel nuts or grated carrots.