Layered Carrot Cake

Preheat the oven to 180°C (Gas 4). Grease two 22cm springform cake tins and line the bases with baking parchment. Spread the walnuts on a baking tray and toast in the oven for about 5 minutes, until lightly browned, watching carefully that they don’t burn. Put the nuts into a clean tea towel, rub them to get rid of excess skin, then set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, whisk together the oil, eggs, vanilla extract, and sugar with an electric hand- held whisk until light, fluffy, and thickened. Put the grated carrot in a clean tea towel and squeeze out any excess liquid, then fold it into the cake batter until evenly mixed through.

Roughly chop the cooled walnuts and fold them into the mixture with the sultanas. Finally fold in the flour, salt, spices, and orange zest and mix to combine.

Divide the mixture between the tins, and bake in the centre of the oven for 45 minutes, or until springy to the touch and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean from both cakes.

Leave the cakes to cool for 5 minutes in their tins, then turn them out to cool completely on a wire rack. Once they are cool, halve each cake horizontally using a serrated knife to give you 4 layers of cake in total, being careful to keep the layers an even thickness.

To make the icing, cream together the butter, cream cheese, icing sugar, orange zest, and vanilla extract. Sandwich each layer of the cake together with a scant one-fifth of the icing and cover the top and sides of the cake with the remaining icing.