THE Carrot Cake, swiss version

I am a chocolate addict, but strangely enough, my favorit cake remains carrot cake. Now to me, carrot cake is a swiss tradition, but over the years i got to discover there seems to be more than just this version.
Like the "american" carrot cake, with more spicies, walnuts and a cream cheese frosting, which i like, but it doesn't have such a strong carrot taste to it. Recently i've seen an episod of "Nigella's Kitchen" where she presents a Venetian carrot cake, which i have yet to try.

As said in a previous post, i kept my Grandma's cookbook, and i specially like to go thru the dessert books she had. She left bookmarks here and there that i keep in place, some note or even bills of the ingredients she bought. Now, i used to do a carrot cake recipe from a Betty Bossi book of hers for years.

But last week, while reading one of her books i found a page she torn out of a magazine, and it's a carrot cake recipe, or in original version "Aargauer Rüeblitorte", which is not just a swiss carrot cake, but a carrot cake from a specific region of switzerland. It looks good and sound yummy, i don't need more to give it a try. It's now my official carrot cake recipe, until i find a better one ;)

Swiss Carrot Cake

300gr of Carrots, grated
300gr of Almonds, grounded
4 Eggs
200gr of Sugar
60gr of Flour
1 Lemon, Zest and Juice
1 Teaspoon of Baking Powder
Salt
Butter and Flour for the Cake Tin
150gr of Icing Sugar
2-3 Tablespoon of Lemon Juice
12 Marzipan Carrots for decoration (optional)

Butter a 24 cm cake tin and sprinkle some flour on it, tap the excess flour away. Heat your oven to 180°C.

Peel and grate the carrots, preferably quite thin. In a bowl, mix the egg yolk and the sugar until it's thick, light and forms a ribbon. Add the lemon zest and juice to it, than the grated carrots, the grounded almonds, flour and baking powder.

Put a bit of salt in the egg whites, and beat them until it forms stiff, firm peaks. Carefull add your egg whites to the egg yolk/sugar/carrots/almond mixture. Pour it in the cake tin and put it in the oven for about 45 minutes.

After it's compleltly cooled, you can put the icing. Add lemon juice (progressivly) to the icing sugar, be carefull that it's not too runny, put the icing on top of the cake and spread it around. If you have some, you can decorate the cake with marzipan carrots.

Now the hardest part is to let the icing take, before enjoying a slice of this wonderfull cake.