Father's Day Carrot Cake

Last year for my Dad’s birthday, he requested a Carrot Cake.  I’d never made one before, but that never stops me.  So, I got a recipe and went to the store.  When I got home, I set out to make his cake.  I peeled and grated the carrots and I went to town.  I got most of the way through making the batter when I realized I didn’t have any flour.  None at all.  It was after midnight on a work night and if I wanted to run to the store to get flour, it would be at least a half hour excursion.  So I scrapped the carrot cake, made a pan of brownies, and gave my dad an IOU.  For Father’s Day this year, I decided to make good on my IOU.  This recipe calls for you to whisk the flour together with other dry ingredients at the beginning of making the cake.  Aha!  I will not be gotten again!

I hear it came out well.  I don’t eat carrot cake, so I don’t know.  But I do know that the icing was delicious!

Adapted from:  Sticky Gooey Creamy Chewy

Here’s what I used for the cake:

2 ¼ Cups Flour

1 ½ Tsp Baking Powder

1 Tsp Baking Soda

2 Tsp Cinnamon

½ Tsp ground Ginger

1 Tsp Salt

¼ Tsp ground Nutmeg

4 extra large Eggs, at room temperature

1 ½ Cups Sugar

1 Cup Vegetable Oil

½ Cup Buttermilk

2/3 Cup firmly packed Brown Sugar

2 Tsp Vanilla Extract

8 oz crushed Pineapple, drained

1 Pound finely grated Carrots

Here’s what I did:

First, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees.  Then I peeled, washed, and grated the carrots.  This is what one pound of grated carrots looks like:

I sprayed an 8 x 8 inch baking pan with cooking spray.  Then I whisked together the Flour, Baking Powder, Baking Soda, Cinnamon, Ginger, Salt, and Nutmeg.  I set that bowl to the side. 

Next, I mixed together the Eggs, Sugars, Oil, Buttermilk, Vanilla, and Pineapple.  I slowly incorporated the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until everything was mixed together well.  Then I stirred in the carrots just until they were evenly distributed throughout the batter. 

I poured half of the batter into my pan and put it in the oven to bake.  It took about 45 minutes for my cakes to bake completely.  Here is what mine looked like fresh out of the oven:

If you have more than one 8 x 8 pan, you can bake both layers of your cake at once.  I only have one right now.  It’s a long story . . .

Stick a toothpick or skewer into the center of your cake to make sure it’s done.  If it comes out clean, it’s done.  As always, be sure to keep an eye on the cake as it’s baking – you don’t want to over bake the cake.

I let each cake cool in the pan on a cooling rack for about 20 minutes before I tried to take the cake out of the pan. 

Here’s what I used for the frosting:

16 Oz Cream Cheese, softened

1 Stick of unsalted Butter, softened

3 Tsp Vanilla Extract

3 Cups Powdered Sugar

Here’s what I did:

First I beat the Cream Cheese and Butter together until they were smooth.  I added the Vanilla and beat the entire mixture until the Vanilla was incorporated.  Finally, I added the Powdered Sugar 1 cup at a time until the frosting tasted like I wanted it to.  I ended up using 3 cups of Powdered Sugar.  You could use 4.  Or more.  Or less.  Just whatever suits you.

I found the frosting to be a bit runny, so I put it in the refrigerator for a few minutes to thicken it up a bit before I iced my cake.

Hint:  Be sure that you do not ice the cakes until they are completely cooled. 

If you ice them when they’re warm, they’ll heat up your frosting, which will

make it runny and you’ll have a terrible mess on your hands.

And, for those of us like to keep our vegetables separate from our desserts, I also made Hot Fudge Sundae Cupcakes.  They were deeeelicious!  That recipe will be coming soon!

Enjoy!

P.S.  Since this was a Father’s Day Carrot Cake, here’s a picture of my Dad and I: