Moist Carrot Cake

I am a proud owner of a ridiculously cute bunny rabbit, who gets a carrot every morning and sometimes a second during the day if he's lucky or does something extraordinarily cute (which is often). With all this feeding and my family's use of carrots in our cuisine, a quarter of the bottom drawer in our refrigerator is dedicated to carrots. While rummaging through the refrigerator for a healthy snack, I noticed 2 bags of carrots instead of the usual 1, so I decided to be adventurous and make my own carrot soup.

Except not. I just recently developed a taste for carrots, and I think it will be much longer before I can make myself swallow a bowl full of carrot puree.

With Easter coming up, my frequently-craving-sweets appetite, and a desire to burn the midnight oil, I decided to make carrot cake. Plus, my boyfriend's dad apparently loves the dessert, so it seemed like a great idea.

I got the recipe for the cake here, and the cream cheese frosting recipe from Williams Sonoma.

Ingredients

Cake

• 4 cups (about 5 large) carrots, peeled and grated
  
• 1 1/2 cups ground nuts (I used almonds)


• 2 cups flour


• 1 tbsp cinnamon


• 2 tsp baking soda


• 1 tsp salt


• 4 eggs


• 1 cup oil


• 1 cup granulated white sugar


• 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar


• 1 tbsp vanilla
  

Frosting

• 8 oz cream cheese


• 1 stick unsalted butter


• 2 cups confectioners' sugar


• 1 tsp vanilla extract


• 1/4 tsp salt

Preparation

Cake

Cream sugar, eggs, and oil.

Add remaining cake ingredients and mix well.

Pour batter into greased 9x13 baking pan.

Bake in 350 degree oven for 28 minutes.

Frosting

Cream cream cheese.

Add butter, confectioners' sugar, vanilla, and salt. Beat until combined well.

Notes/tips/recommendations

• Carrot cake recipes typically call for walnuts. My family eats lots of almonds at home for the health benefits, so I just used what we have laying around.
• I felt the frosting had too much vanilla. There was so much that I felt it was a little bitter. Also, it was not as thick as I would have liked. My advice is to be careful when creaming, because I think excessive creaming of the cream cheese will result in a runny frosting.
• To grate the carrots, I used a food processor. My food processor chopped the carrots into long shreds, and I just ran my knife through it a couple of times to make them smaller pieces.