Carrot Cake

For Thanksgiving my family went a little overboard on the desserts. I'm not saying it's a bad thing - there were just a TON of desserts. I'm going to post a couple of favorites from the meal over the next few days. The first one is carrot cake. I never thought I was a fan of carrot cake but this recipe is so yummy and with all the spices it tastes just like fall and the holidays. This is also a pretty easy recipe - that uses ingredients you probably already have on hand for the holiday baking season.

 

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

 

picture credit: Cook'sIllustrated.com

 

For the cake:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purposr flour
• 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 pound carrots, peeled
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 cup vegetable oil

 

For the frosting:

• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 5 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
• 1 Tbsp sour cream
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups powdered sugar 

 

 

Cake:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Flour a 13 x 9 baking dish and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt & set aside. Shred your carrots - you should end up with about 3 cups - and set aside.

 

In the mixer, cream the sugar, brown sugar and eggs until combined. Once combined, tuen mixer to low and in a slow, steady stream add the oil. Once all the oil is added, turn mixer to high and beat until smooth. Remove bowl from stand mixer. Add carrots and dry ingredients - mix by HAND. DO NOT OVERMIX or the cake will be tough. It is ok if there are streaks of flour in the bowl.

 

Pour batter into baking dish - bake 35-40 mins.

 

Frosting:

Mix sour cream, cream cheese, vanilla and butter until combined and smooth. Add powdered sugar in stages until fully combined. Spread on cake once the cake has fully cooled.

 

 

 

CHEERS!

 

 

Source: Cook's Illustrated