Carrot cake

So this was the first Saturday in a while I didn't have to spend moving someone or going to a theme park or writing essays (although technically I do have to write 2 essays, but I'm ignoring those for the weekend), so I decided to bake something. As Sunday is the final match of our team in Euro 2012 (unless some statistic miracle happens), I decided to bake something orange to eat when we were watching the match. Naturally, that means carrot cake.
Now I'd already made carrot cupcakes about a month ago, but this time I was going for the real deal. Although that immediately fell apart when the supermarket didn't have any cream cheese and I had to go for mon chou (which also calls itself "fresh cream cheese") instead, but as I've already seen time and again, that is simply how it works. Also, this is the point at which I rediscovered that the battery in my kitchen scales had died, so when I say that I used X grams of something, it was more of an educated guess (I think I used about 400 g of carrots, to be honest). Finally, I have literally no idea where this recipe comes from, I found it on a handwritten piece of paper inside my cookbook. It may be a simplification of another recipe, it may be something copied from the Internet, it may be a combination of several recipes, I have no idea.
Anyway, here we go then:

Ingredients:
300 g self-raising flour
200 g brown sugar
250 ml sunflower oil
4 eggs
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 tablespoon lemon zest (which I then forgot to add, so you can do without)
200 g carrots
100 g chopped walnuts

Line your tin with baking parchment, not only the bottom but also the sides.
Grate your carrots in a kitchen machine (you really really do not want to do this by hand. Really!). Change to the mixer and add the sugar, flour, spices, and lemon zest.
Combine the eggs and oil in a separate bowl.
While letting the machine run, pour in the oil-mixture bit by bit until you have a soft dough.
Add the chopped walnuts and mix for a little longer.
Spoon the mixture into your tin and bake for about 1 hour and 20 minutes at 150 degrees C, until firm but still springy to the touch. Let cool inside the oven with the door open, then take it out and cool further on a wire rack.

My risen cake collapsed somewhat when I opened the oven door...

For the icing, I would normally use cream cheese, but as there was only mon chou, I changed to the following:
50 g butter (room temperature)
100 g mon chou
50-100 g icing sugar (depending on how sweet you want this)
1 tablespoon lemon zest (optional, I compensated for the zest I forgot to put in the batter)

Mix the butter until it is soft and smooth. Beat in the mon chou, and finally beat in the icing sugar. Spread it out on top of the cake (make sure it is completely cooled!), trying to make it look pretty.

Dense, moist, nutty, spicy, what more do you need?

Icing does always make a cake look better, doesn't it? You can't see all the ugly lumps that appeared when my beautifully risen cake collapsed when it came into contact with the colder air. Ah well, it's supposed to be dense and moist, which it was, and you can still see some of the air bubbles as proof that it actually had risen. The ginger adds a bit of spice, while the nuts give it some more structure than the carrot cupcakes had. I think it is a success, even though it is not as orange as a true football supporter may have liked!