Pecan Passion Cake

This wholemeal cake has to be good for us – it contains fruit, nuts and vegetables! I wonder whether a slice of it would count towards our 5-a-day? It is the perfect cake for afternoon tea so make it in advance to allow sufficient time for it to cool and be iced.

You will need:

a round, deep cake tin approx. 19cm/8″ in diameter – greased and lined with baking parchment

225g of wholemeal self raising flour

2 teaspoons of baking powder

150g of soft brown sugar

50g of pecan nuts, chopped

1 medium banana, mashed

1 medium carrot, grated

the grated rind of 1 orange

2 large free range eggs

1 heaped teaspoon of cinnamon

150mls of vegetable oil

Method:

preheat the oven to 180°C
using a fork, lightly beat the eggs into the vegetable oil
put all the other ingredients into a large mixing bowl, make a well in the centre and pour in the oil and egg mixture
beat everything together until the mixture is smooth and well blended (the mixture will be quite liquid)
pour the cake mix into the prepared baking tin and put into the preheated oven, baking it for approximately 1 hour
because this cake is made with wholemeal flour the colour of the finished cake cannot be used as a guide as to whether it is fully cooked or not. To check whether the cake is cooked, push a skewer into the centre – there should be no wet cake mix sticking to it when you remove it

place the cake tin on a wire rack and then remove the cake from the tin when it is cooled

For the icing:

This quantity of icing is sufficient to generously cover the top of the cake. If you wish to ice the sides of the cake too, just double the quantities.