A friend told me that the Little & Friday carrot cake, which I had never tried, was amazing. When I looked at the recipe, I saw it contained dates, which I don't like, so I tweaked it slightly, to accommodate the contents of my house... including using purple instead of orange carrots...

Ingredients
1/2 cup walnuts
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
4 eggs
1 cup oil
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups grated carrot (purple in my instance)
2 Tbsp chopped Candied Orange Peel  (The original included 1 Tbsp of chopped crystalised ginger)
100g 72% dark chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup chopped dried apricots

1. Preheat oven to 160C. Grease a 23cm cake tin and line the bottom and sides with baking paper cut to fit exactly.
2. Place walnuts on a baking tray and roast for 5 minutes. Set aside.
3. Sift flour, baking powder and spices into a large mixing bowl.
4. In a separate bowl, beat eggs until combined. Add oil and sugar and beat to combine.
5. Add grated carrot, roasted walnuts, candied orange peel, chocolate and apricots, and combine. Add to the flour mixture and stir to combine.
6. Spoon batter into prepared cake tin and bake for 50-60 minutes or until the top springs back when touched lightly and a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the middle of the cake.
7. Let the cake cool completely in the tin before turning out and peeling off the baking paper.
8. Ice with a cream cheese icing. I never both adding butter, just use cream cheese, icing sugar, vanilla, and (in this case) lemon zest...