Carrot Cake

Ray McVinnie is a Chef - world famous in New Zealand :-) He is also a judge on New Zealand's version of Masterchef. I've met him and he's lovely, with a very dry sense of humour. This is his recipe as published in one of our weekend newspapers recently. The list of ingredients is quite long, but it is so easy to assemble - don't be daunted.
 I wish you could be in my kitchen now - the scent is lovely - all warm spicey.

Ray McVinnie's Carrot Cake
3/4 cup rice flour
1/4 cup cornflour
1/2 cup ground almonds
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 cup walnut pieces - roughly chopped
3/4 cup dessicated coconut
3/4 cup grapeseed oil
2 large eggs - lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups grated carrot - about 2 medium sized carrots
3/4 cup crushed pineapple - well drained

Pre-heat the oven to 180c
Grease and line a 23cm loose-bottomed cake tin
Put the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well
Add the wet ingredients and mix well
Pour into the tine and bake 45-50 minutes until a skewer comes out clean
Remove from oven and cool completely.
Cut the cake in half through the equator. Spread half the icing on the first layer, put the second layer on top and spread with the other half of the icing - I didn't do that - I just plopped the icing on top.

Ray suggests an icing of :
3 1/2 cups icing sugar
100g softened butter
zest and juice of 2 lemons.

But it's carrot cake! Carrot cakes must have cream-cheese icing...so
150g icing sugar
100g butter softened
beat together and add
the zest and juice of 1 lemon
100g cream cheese.
Ice the cake then dust thickly with icing sugar.

You know how gluten free cakes are dry, crumbly and altogether pretty ordinary? Well, not this one.
Even the next day it is moist and spicy. This recipe is a 'keeper'! I can't imagine anyone would guess it is gluten free. Thank you Ray McVinnie xxx