Coll Doll's Carrot Cake

My best friend from college, the one who's wedding I was in during October in Florida, is, or at least was when we lived together, a pretty avid baker and cook.  Besides the internet, she's my go-to girl if I need a recipe or idea for food.  She recently posted on Facebook that she made a carrot cake.  I immediately asked for the recipe and to my delight, she immediately shared it. 

I absolutely LOVE carrot cake.  It was the one flavor I insisted we have at our wedding for cake.  The cream cheese frosting really just makes it become over the top delicious.  However, I've never attempted to make my own.  My mom has a healthy recipe that's really good, but involves an overnight process of boiling a carrot concoction.  Since last week was Engineering Week, I figured it was a good excuse to bake and bring something into the office.  So, I used the recipe that Coll shared, from allrecipes.com, her suggested adjustment (sugars) and then I ended up tweaking the spices to add nutmeg in addition to the cinnamon.

I was so anxious to try it, I kind of forget to get a picture of the frosted cake and the whole cupcake.  Trust me, this recipe is THAT good that you'll want to dig in right away.

(I also used my camera under AV setting to mess around with changing the aperture to change where my focus is in my pictures)

Coll Doll's Carrot Cake



Cake Ingredients*:

• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil**  1 cup plain applesauce (cinnamon could be good too)**
• 1 cup white sugar 1/2 cup white sugar**
• 1 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup brown sugar**
• 2 tsps vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsps baking soda
• 2 tsps baking powder
• 1/2 tspn salt
• 1 1/2 tsps ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsps nutmeg
• 3 cups grated carrots
• (Optional: you could put in raisins or pecans)

*See frosting ingredients below

**Since originally posting this recipe; I've revised the ingredients (which are striked out): by substituting apple sauce for oil and cutting the sugar in half. This makes the recipe healthier. With the frosting, you can't even tell sugar is missing from the cake!

(I got kind of ahead of myself; there is NO butter in the cake portion of the recipe)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
• Grease 9"x13" pan
• Grate carrots

(Note: be very careful if you try to grate with your "opposite" hand. This resulted in a banged up knuckle and a band-aid for me!)

 

• In a large bowl, mix together eggs, oil, sugars, and vanilla



• Add in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Combine.



• Mix in carrots

• Pour into pan and bake for ~45 minutes (use a toothpick in the center to ensure it's cooked) 

 

Frosting Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Whoops; you just need one stick of butter

Directions:

• In a medium bowl, combine all ingredients
• Once mixed, if frosting is stiff, put in microwave for ~15 seconds to soften for spreading

Once cake is cooled; frost and enjoy!

 

You can also make cupcakes; by baking for ~20 minutes.