Carrot Cake with Olive Oil

This carrot cake is moist and delicious and exactly as a carrot cake should be. I scoured the internet for carrot cake recipes and the majority contained vegetable oil - which I am not a big fan of for various reasons. So I adapted a recipe from Sass and Veracity to make this fantastic cake. It's not super sweet so is the perfect cake for afternoon tea (as we ate it). The cream cheese frosting is also a much healthier version than the usual - so you can enjoy twice as much. 

Ingredients
1/2 cup olive oil
250g brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarb soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground mixed spice
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup raisins
250g carrots (approximately 2 medium carrots), peeled and grated
1 x 220g box of cream cheese
3 tblsp greek yoghurt
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence

Preheat oven to 165 degrees C. Grease and line a 20cm cake tin with baking paper (don't forget this step as the cake is very sticky).

Put olive oil, sugar and eggs into a medium bowl and mix well. Sift flour, baking powder, bicarb soda, salt and all spices into the olive oil mixture. Mix until combined. Add walnuts, raisins and carrot, stirring until incorporated. 

Pour cake mix into prepared tin and bake for 1 hour, or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the center of the cake. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool.

To prepare the icing combine cream cheese, yoghurt, sugar and vanilla essence in a small bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat until smooth and creamy. Taste and add more sugar if needed. Spread the top of the cake with icing and enjoy!