Carrot cake

For some reason I have been craving something sweet other then chocolate lately. Crazy I know what kind of woman doesn’t want chocolate haha. I decided on carrot cake. Something I rarely ever have and something I have never made before. My grandmother has a great back yard garden and right now carrots are in season and she has a bunch of them so I was lucky enough to make my cake with some fresh organic carrots :)

I looked through about 30 different recipes before I came across this one from Tyler Florence on Food Net Work. It was different from the rest of them so I thought itwould be worth a try. I made a couple changes I used half granulated sugar and half brown sugar instead of all brown sugar. I did not add the walnuts into the batter my husband doesn’t eat nuts so I garnished half the cake with the nuts. For the cream cheese frosting I only used half of the cream cheese that it calls for and I add about ½ cup more powdered sugar. When I make this cake again I will probably add an extra ½ cup of carrots. I made this cake into a three-tiered cake. The layers kept sliding because of the frosting so I took some straws and spaced out 4 of them around the cake and it worked great to keep them in place.

Original recipe

1½ cups finely minced carrots

½ cup crushed pineapple, drained
¾ cup finely chopped walnuts
2½ cups, all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon ground allspice

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
A pinch of kosher salt
1 cup buttermilk
¼ molasses
4 large eggs
¾ cup vegetable oil
1½ cup dark brown sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Take the carrots and chop into large pieces, then mince in a food processor until you have a fine texture. Drain pineapple and finely chop walnuts. Set aside. In a large mixing bowl add flour, baking soda, baking powder and spices together. In a separate bowl mix buttermilk, molasses, eggs, vegetable oil, and dark brown sugar together.

Now combine wet and dry ingredients together to make a batter then fold in the carrots, pineapple, and walnuts. Pour into the prepared pans and bake for 20-30 minutes until cake set and springs back when pressed in the middle. Cool cake completely before you frost.

Original frosting
2 lb cream cheese, room temp

2 sticks of unsalted butter, room temp
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups powdered sugar
Beat together cream cheese and butter until fluffy add vanilla & sugar.