Coconut, carrot and brown sugar cake slices

The hybrid between carrot cake and coconut bars. All crunchy and textured from the specific carrot and coconut chewiness and, in this case, intensely rich-caramel-like tasting from the brown sugar and the butter. Lots of both. I mean, in that moment when you just look at a recipe and it starts with 250 g butter you know it's going to be good, right? No, I'm not trying to kill you, why would you say that? :D
Recipe slightly adapted from here. 

Last year: Chickpea, avocado and pesto salad. 



Ingredients (for a 20 X 30 cm tray):

• 250 g butter
• 300 g raw brown sugar (muscavado)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 200 g flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 70 g coconut flakes
• 200 g grated carrots
• 2 teaspoons cake spices (like cinnamon, cardamom, ground cloves, cumin, allspice etc)
• a small pinch of salt

For the topping:

• 85 g dessicated coconut
• 25 g brown sugar
• 25 g butter

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Line the baking tray with baking paper.Melt the butter over low heat, then add the sugar, vanilla and eggs to it:

Mix it very well until even. In a separate bowl, mix the flour with the baking powder and the salt (just a little pinch). Add the flour and the coconut to the butter-egg-sugar mixture and mix well:

Also add the grated carrots and spices and mix again. Pour into the prepared baking tray:

Put it in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. In the meantime, melt the butter for the topping in a small pan, then mix it with the sugar and coconut. Let aside.

When the baking time is up, take the cake out of the oven:

Spread the topping on it:

And then return it to the oven for another 10 minutes. After that, take it out, allow to cool a bit and slice it into squares:

It's done, dig in! :)