Carrot Cake

After getting a big bag of carrots for yesterday's Carrot Calzone, it's seems only fitting I make carrot cake too. Thankfully book group is Tuesday night at my house, so there should be plenty of people to eat the carrot cake. I'm not much of a box cake person, but I do have to try a lot of scratch recipes until I find a cake recipe I like. This is my Aunt Gwen's recipe, and I think it's fabulous.

Ingredients:
dry
2 c flour
2 c sugar (I use 1-1/2 c since I use frosting. Use 2 cups if not using frosting)
2 t baking soda
2 t cinnamon
1 t salt

*sift together and set aside*

wet
1 1/2 c canola oil (in my carrot calzone blurb I mentioned the use of carrots to absorb the oils and fats in making tuco. Though I'd assume the oil would all be absorbed by the carrots, I still only use 1 c and it's still a moist cake)
4 beaten eggs
3 c shredded carrots (though I actually use 4 cups - it makes it healthier, no? Also, don't use the preshredded carrots found at the market. I made that mistake once thinking it would be OK - nope. None of the oil was absorbed, and the carrots didn't really cook into the cake. Use freshly home-shredded carrots. Trust me.)

*mix well*

Here's three cups of shredded carrots
though I use 4 cups

Instructions:
Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. This won't be a runny cake batter like with a cake mix. It will be very heavy.

Bake at 325 for an hour (until fork comes out clean).

I don't like my top too dark.
The instructions are to cook at 350 for 30-40 minutes,
but I've had much more success at the lower temperature for more time

Cream Cheese Frosting:
Ingredients
1/2 c butter, room temperature
8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 t vanilla
Powdered sugar, to taste

Instructions:
It is soooo important the cream cheese and butter be room temperature. If they are not, you'll have chunky frosting. Icky! I combine the butter and cream cheese and let the mixer whip them smooth, and I mean smooooth. Then I add the vanilla. Add the powdered sugar, the recipe calls for one box or a half of a bag, but I add about half of that. But if you have a sweet tooth, add a box's worth.

You gotta taste it as you go...

And since I needed a picture of a piece of cake, I sacrificed presentation for Tuesday night and cut out the center piece to eat (and of course I couldn't it back in.)

I was so tempted to pull a Bill Cosby and fill the hole with paper towels and frost over them,
but I didn't have the guts to do it...

And what do you do with leftover frosting? Of course you can use it all on the cake if you want, but I choose to make...

Graham crackers and frosting
Yummy!

Enjoy!