Monthly Archives: March 2016

Carroty for Easter

…or when you buy a giant bag of mini carrots at Costco and realize you need to start getting creative with what to do.

My sibling found a random recipe and wanted me to try it, so this recipe is from Food network. I made some modifications such as cutting down the sugar as usual. This is my first time making carrot cake. I should have tried one of the carrot recipes from the other blogs I’ve read, but since this recipe was shoved in front of me, I worked with it. No, Food network’s recipe does not take 25 hours like it says it does.

 

3 Layer Carrot Cake

 

Cake Ingredients

  • 1.5 cups granulated sugar
  • 1 and 1/2 cups avocado oil
  • 4 fresh whole eggs
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons of pumpkin spice (a mix of cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg)
  • 3 cups raw shredded or diced carrots
  • 4 ounces chopped walnuts(or just break them by hand and mash them up with a wooden spatula)

Icing Ingredients

  • 4 cups powdered sugar (you can prob use less like 3.5 cups)
  • 12 ounces room temperature cream cheese
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 2 ounces room temperature butter

Steps for Making Cake/Icing

Cake

  • Preheat oven to 300 F.
  • Mix sugar, oil, eggs in one bowl.
  • If you’re lazy like I was, instead of separately mixing the dry ingredients in a different bowl, you can just slowly start mixing the dry ingredients in afterwards. I did the salt, pumpkin spice, salt first. Then, I started slowly stirring in the flour.
  • Mix in carrots and then nuts.
  • Cutting the carrots and shredding them took by far the most time.
  • Now, you need to split the batter between three 9 inch circular pans, or you can use other containers and not do 3 layers too. I used 2 metal circular pans and 1 silicone one. I used all of them, and at the end the silicone one was the easiest to get the baked cake out.
  • Bake 50 to 60 minutes.
  • Cool pans and cake layers.
  • During this time, you might as well do the icing!

Icing

  • Mix powdered sugar, cream cheese, vanilla, and butter. Beat until thoroughly blended. Hold refrigerated and use as needed.
  • Note: When you are beating, be careful! I used a hand mixer, and it started to smell like my motor was burning out! This mixture can be dense. You need the mixer in order to get all that sugar blended into the rest of the ingredients. Take it slow and let the mixer rest so you don’t kill it.

 

Combining Cake and Icing!

  • Ok, now you can invert one cake layer from its pan in order to get it out. If you can’t get it out, start eding along the side of the pan with a thin flexible spatula. I cracked the two layers I made in the metal tins…sooo my cake looks a little crumbly in the picture above.
  • So, once you put down the one layer, ice the top of it.
  • Then put down another layer, and ice the top of that. Repeat with third layer.
  • You will still have icing left over. You can use the rest to ice the sides of the cake. I was lazy, so I didn’t do that.
  • Since the icing has cream cheese and butter, store the cake in the fridge when you’re not going to eat it. I put mine in a Wilton cake carrier because it has the snap ons to “Seal” the cake inside.

 

Enjoy! Happy early Easter!