Want Easy Carrot Cake? Use a Packet of Cake Mix!

This easy carrot cake is perfect if you want cake, but don’t want to be gathering multiple ingredients and spending 3 hours in the kitchen!  Cake should be a pleasure to make, not a drudge!  Frosting is optional!  Don’t deny yourself the cake just because you can’t be bothered to make the frosting today 🙂

It’s not often I bake a cake – it seems like a lot of effort to then be faced by a whole cake I then have to eat.  But, sometimes, I just make one anyway.  It is possible to freeze cake … but it’s so much easier to just eat it all 🙂

Products and quality have moved on in leaps and bounds in the past 10 years – and you shouldn’t always dismiss using a good quality cake mix packet.   There are four main advantages as I see it to using a packet to make an easy carrot cake:

1. I don’t actually have to have, and grate, any carrots at all!
2. No need to have all the ingredients in the cupboard
3. There’s no messy weighing out to be done, no half-used packets languishing in the cupboard.
4. The recipe is on the back of the packet, right when/where you want to use it, no digging around for hours trying to find a recipe you like the sound of!

If you’re not a regular baker then you won’t have a cupboard full of the assortment of ingredients you might need/use, if you buy a packet mix to make a carrot cake, then it’s simple: one packet in the cupboard, open the cupboard, use it. The beauty is, it just sits there until you want to make a cake – from thinking “I want cake” to eating it can be just 1 hour!  This means they’re great if somebody phones and invites you over for coffee and a chat and you can say “I’ll bring cake” – you won’t be going empty handed!

There are many brands of cake mix on the market today, I used a well-known brand.  Aldi and Lidl have their own cake mix packets from about £0.70 a packet, that’s cheaper than buying a longlife cake from a cheapo shop!

Ingredients for the well-known brand I used:

• One 500 gram pack of cake mix (that’s the size where you can reach and put your hand round the whole front of the packet, it’s smallish)
• 200 ml water
• 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Method: 

1. Throw the cake mix, water and oil into a mixing bowl.
2. Mix together until it’s a smooth batter – between 1 and 5 minutes depending on whether you’re using an electric mixer or a bent fork!
3. Grease a large loaf tin and line it with baking paper, or use cake tin liners.
4. Carefully pour the cake mix into the paper inside the tin, so it doesn’t splash.
5. Bake in a preheated oven at 160-170ºC (320-340ºF) Gas Mark 3-4 for about 50-55 minutes, until it looks the colour you like a cake to look!
6. Remove your baked carrot cake from the oven and put it to one side for 10-15 minutes.
7. Remove the cake (with the baking paper or paper liner intact) from the tin – and let it stand to cool on a cooling rack.

Frosting a cake is optional.  Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t.

Variations:

Not THAT hungry you can eat a whole cake?  Make up just half the packet, and/or make up half the packet and bake in muffin tins, to make individual carrot muffins!  Baking is quicker too, these will take just 30-35 minutes.  Half the packet mix, half the water, half the oil, just over half the baking time!

Can You Freeze Carrot Cake?

Yes, you can freeze this.  You can freeze this carrot cake whole, or slice it up and wrap each piece separately.

How Long Will This Carrot Cake Last?

If you wrap it in foil and/or place it in an airtight container, it’ll last about 2-3 days.  If it does start to feel a little dry, then a quick blast in the microwave for 10 seconds or so will make it moist again (10 seconds for individual slices).

Menu Cost:

With one packet mix and just a few spoons of oil, the cost of this cake, depending on which brand you buy, will be under £0.75.