Let Her Eat Cake: Spiced Treacle Carrot Cake

In honour of Hallowe'en next week, we here at DSHQ thought we'd give you something dark, autumnal, brooding and, err... orange. No, we don't mean Peter Andre in a bad mood wearing ear muffs. We mean a cake with CARROT and TREACLE and SPICES to see you through a long night of horror films, fake cobwebs and an over-indulgence on boozy eye-ball jellies.

This would go fabulously with pumpkin ice cream, and since it's baked in a Bundt tin, that leaves what? Yes! A place in the middle for Extra Things. Like ice cream. Or sweets. Or a bottle of rum.

Spiced Treacle Carrot Cake
You will need: 
For the cake:

• 200g butter
• 200g muscovado sugar
• 4 generous tbsp treacle
• 2 tbsp golden syrup
• 200ml milk
• 2 free-range eggs, beaten
• 200g carrots, grated
• 350g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• Large handful pecans, chopped (you can replace with another type of nut, if you like)
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 freshly grated nutmeg, or 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

For the filling: 

• 125g cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 tbsp butter, softened
• 2 tbsp icing sugar
• 1 tbsp milk
• 1/4 freshly grated nutmeg (or pinch ground nutmeg)
• 1/2 fresh vanilla pod, seeds scraped out or 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• Pecans, to decorate

Make it!

The cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C/325°F/Gas Mark 3. Thoroughly grease a Bundt tin. (You can use a deep, 20cm cake tin if you don't have one, but you might want to line that). 
2. Place the butter, muscovado sugar, treacle and golden syrup in a saucepan and place over a low heat, stirring until the butter and sugar have melted together into a glorious sticky goo. 
3. Leave to cool for a few minutes, before whisking in the milk, followed by the eggs, beating together well. 
4. Place the carrot, flour and bicarb into a large bowl. Pour the treacle-butter mixture over this, folding the flour in until fully combined.
5. Stir in the pecans, ginger and nutmeg. 
6. Pour into your prepared Bundt tin, and bake for 40-45 minutes. 
7. Leave to cool for at least 5-10 minutes in the tin. Slide a thin spatula around the edges, then place a plate on top of the cake tin and invert. Cool completely before icing. 

The icing:

1. Beat the cream cheese to loosen it, then add the butter and beat well by hand, or with an electric whisk, until light and fluffy. 
2. Add the icing sugar a little at a time, until completely combined. 
3. Spoon in the milk, nutmeg and vanilla and beat again: if the mix looks too thick, just add more milk.
4. Spoon over the cooled cake and please, try not to drool. Decorate with pecans, plastic bats... whatever takes your fancy.