Friday, January 23, 2009

Sunshine and carrot cake

What a difference the sunshine makes! We've had two days of sun and yesterday the temperature rose above the freezing mark. Nice! Larry and I went for our first walk in a week, and it was a delight. The three gentlemen in our household all have January birthdays. Two of them requested carrot cake. Since their birthdays are only nine days apart, I made a double recipe yesterday, and put one cake in the freezer for the next birthday. The other batch I made into cupcakes.
While I was putting the ingredients together I was thinking that it's practically health food, :>} (well. . . except for all that sugar, and I guess white flour is no longer in favor) so I thought I'd share the recipe with you.
This recipe makes one 9 x 13 inch cake, or 24 cupcakes, or a good sized bundt cake. It's delicious!
Carrot Cake
2 cups brown sugar
4 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
3 cups grated carrots
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Mix above together. Then combine dry ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Add dry ingredients to carrot mixture. Blend thoroughly. Grease baking pan or use cupcake papers. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit until inserted toothpick comes out clean. (About 19 minutes for cupcakes, 25 minutes for 9 x 13 cake, or 40 minutes for bundt cake.)
If you remember to save out some grated carrots it looks pretty sprinkled on the top. I forgot to do that this time. Oh, and if you want frosting:
Cream cheese frosting:
8 oz pkg of low fat cream cheese
4 tablespoons butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Blend all ingredients until smooth. Spread on cooled cake or cupcakes.

5 comments:

Gingerbreadshouse7 said...

Boy! oh Boy! look who's cooking and leaving recipes :o) What kind of pills are you taking :o), I need some for energy too..Or are you switching to drinking soda's instead of water :o)...
Ginny

Connie said...

I love carrot cake! How clever of you to double up and make it ahead of time for the next go-round. Those cupcakes look delicious. :D

Suzanne said...

Happy Birthday to the boys in your household. Thank you for sharing your recipe, I really like that about blogging you can share receipes and everything just like my mum used to with her friends.
Have a good weekend and I am glad your weather is better, even if it means no snow.

ladydi said...

Ginny, I really do like to cook, or at least bake, just not breakfast! It seems too early to mess up the kitchen to that degree.

Thanks, Daisy! It was laziness as much as anything. It's just as easy to make two as one, and then I don't have to grind up carrots next week. That was a lot of grinding.

Hey, Suzanne! We still have plenty of snow. The sunshine and 35 degrees F couldn't melt the foot or more of accumulation we have. It was getting rather gray around the edges, not blog worthy at all, when we got another dusting yesterday to cover up the gray. Nice! :>}

ladydi said...
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