Sour dough carrot cake traybake

We keep looking for imaginative ways to use our sour dough discard. I am also looking for ways to use up some of the 15p carrots that were discounted over Easter. Last week we made a carrot cake using both.  It was beautiful and we will definitely make it again.

Ingredients.

120g sour dough discard

65g of vegetable oil (I used cold pressed rape seed oil but any natural tasting oil will be ok)

80g of plain yoghurt

2 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

200g plain flour

2tsp baking p0wder

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp of salt

200g of soft brown sugar

2tsp cinnamon powder

2tsp ground ginger

30g of grated carrot (you can put less in if you are adding the dried fruit)

100g sultanas (optional)

100g of chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

Topping

199g butter

100g icing sugar

splash of water

200g of cream cheese

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C
2.  Line a tin with parchment paper.  Mine was 9 by 13 cm
3.  In a jug whisk together the sour dough discard, the vegetable oil, the eggs, the yoghurt and the   vanilla extract.
4.  In a large bowl mix the flour, baking powder, salt, bicarbonate of soda, sugar, salt and spices.
5.  Add the carrot, nuts and dried fruit and mix until they are combined.  I just did this by hand with a wooden spoon.
6. Add the wet ingredients from the jug and fully combine.
7. Bake for about 30 minutes in the oven, or until a skewer or knife comes out clean.
8.  Leave in the tin for 5 minutes and then cool on a rack.
9.  Make the topping by whisking the butter in a bowl until it is white.
10.  Add the sieved icing sugar and whiz again.
11. If the mixture is too stiff to combine add a splash of water.
12. Lightly whisk in the cream cheese for less than a minute.
13. When the cake is cool smooth the topping over the top and decorate if you want.  I put some grated orange on top and some chopped nuts.  My cake had cracked a bit but you can not see it when the cake is decorated.  If your cake cracks and you are worried, turn the cake upside down and ice the bottom.
14. If you can not afford the cream cheese this would still be nice with glace icing made with icing sugar, water or maybe a drop of fresh orange juice.

We cut this into squares and froze a lot of it as I would have eaten the lot over a couple of days if not.

How do you use your sour discard?