Dense and damp like gingerbread, the flavours in this cake intensify with time, if you can bare not to eat it right away! The delicious frosting is easy to make and well worth it too – brown butter gives a rich, nutty and caramelised flavour to the topping. This straight-forward recipe stands up well to substitutions; use a different flour if that’s what you have and swap the sultanas and pecans for your choice of dried fruit, nuts or dark chocolate chips. Shop-bought mixed spice works well but you could also use the proportions below as a guide for blending your own or simply add your favourites.

Serves:  8 – 10                     Preparation:   Hands on time 35 mins + cooling

Ingredients
Cake:
225g     Carrot, grated
175g     Honey
3            medium-size Eggs
125g      Light olive oil
250g      Wholemeal rye flour
3–4tsp   Mixed spice*
1tsp       Baking powder
1tsp       Bicarbonate of soda
0.25tsp Salt
100g      Pecans + decoration
75g        Sultanas

*Spice mix: 2 teaspoons each of cinnamon, ginger, coriander and nutmeg, 1 teaspoon of mace and cardamom and ½ teaspoon of ground cloves. Add 1 teaspoon of black pepper for extra kick.

Frosting:
100g     Butter
150g     Icing sugar
30g       Honey
1tbsp    Milk

Tip:   Make muffins instead, baking for 20–25 minutes

Method

1.    Preheat your oven to 160^oC fan (or 180^oC) and line a 2lb loaf tin with parchment paper.

2.    Grate the carrots and stir in honey, eggs, and oil before adding the sultanas and chopped pecans.

3.    Sift the dry ingredients together and then fold these through the wet mixture, stirring until there are no patches of flour visible.

4.    Scrape the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 50–60 minutes or until a skewer comes out free of any cake batter. Reduce the cooking time if your tin is narrow or you’re using two 1lb tins.

5.    While the cake is cooking, make the brown butter. Gently heat the butter in a pan until it begins to foam. Keep a close watch and continue to heat until the milk solids begin to turn a rich, nutty brown colour, then remove from the heat before the specks begin to blacken. Allow the butter to completely cool to room temperature.

6.     Once both the cake and brown butter are cool, whip the butter with icing sugar, honey and 1tbsp milk until you have a light and workable frosting. Spread this over the cake and decorate the top with whole or chopped pecans.