Sunday, October 10, 2010

Happy Birthday Carrot Cake

A homemade carrot cake with cream cheese icing for my brother's birthday. The recipe is straight out of my husband's bachelor Betty Crocker cookbook. It was the most similar to my Aunt Nellie's recipe that I have lost. I don't really like pineapple or even raisins in my carrot cake. Just lots of nuts and carrots and frosting that is not too sweet or too thick. There is more frosting on this that I intended but it was good.

Carrot Cake

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 cups shredded carrots

1/4 ground nutmeg

1 cup coarsely chopped nuts

Cream cheese frosting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix sugar, oil and eggs in a bowl until blended. Stir in dry ingredients except carrots and nuts. Beat 1 minute. Stir in carrots and nuts. I baked this in a silicone bundt pan for 1 hour. In a rectangle pan, bake 40 - 45 minutes. In 2 round pans, 30 - 35 minutes. Top cool cake with frosting if desired, or just a dusting of powdered (confectioner's) sugar.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 8 oz. package of cream cheese, softened

2 tablespoons of soft butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

!/2 box (or more) of powdered sugar

2 tablespoons milk.

Mix softened cream cheese and butter with vanilla, powdered sugar and enough milk to make the consistency you want, from a thin, pour-on glaze to a thick, fluffy frosting.

5 comments:

  1. That's a beautiful cake, I'm sure your brother loved it. Nothing better than homemade cake, maybe the best part of a birthday -- unless it's homemade pie.

    I do like raisins and pineapple in mine, and nuts. And lots of frosting. Oh man.

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  2. What a beautiful cake. I love Carrot Cake, I don't care what's in it. My birthday is next August, don't forget.

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  3. It was as delicious tasting as it was looking!!

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  4. This cake looks perfect; like a cartoon out of a Disney movie. I remember cooking out of the Betty Crocker cookbook when I was in high school.

    I made the mistake of making a carrot cake that was made with ground almonds instead of flour. This was in the days before you could buy a bag of ground almonds at Trader Joe's. It was a ton of work but delicious. Then, for years, it was the only way my family liked carrot cake. My daughter and I recently made it together, with the Trader Joe almonds. It's still a great recipe.

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  5. dutchbaby, ground almonds sounds great. Did you replace ALL the flour? It wasn't heavy? I thought about using 1/2 oat flour (ground in food processor) and replacing 1/2 the oil with applesauce and some of the sugar with honey, but the other carrot cake I made for us with Splenda tasted good but didn't have the same texture. If I ever find the right combination, I will be rich!

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