Carrot Cake

This delicious carrot recipe is from The Good Housekeeping Baking Book. I rely on this book so much, sometimes I just ignore the fact that I have other cookbooks waiting to be used… My decoration on the other hand, is coming from another source. I was watching Martha Stewart’s show, and one of her guests baked a carrot cake and decorated it the same way I did. I thought it was an interesting way of completing the cake, and it looked so picture perfect. I’m not so sure about my pictures, but I’ll get there soon enough: )

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

4 large eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup milk

1 tbsp vanilla extract

3 cups lightly packed shredded carrots (about 6 medium carrots)

1 cup walnuts, chopped

3/4 dark seedless raisins

Cream cheese frosting

• Preheat oven to 350F. Grease metal pan.Line bottom with waxed paper; grease paper. Dust with flour.
• In medium bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, baking powder, salt and nutmeg.
• In a large bowl, with mixer at medium -high speed, beat eggs and granulated and brown  sugars 2 minutes, scraping bowl frequently with rubber spatula.Beat in oil, milk, and vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add flour mixture and beat until smooth, about 1 minute, scraping bowl frequently. Fold in carrots, walnuts, and raisins.
• Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 55 to 60 minutes until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out almost clean, with a few moist crumbs attached. Cool in pan on wire rack 10 minutes. With small knife, loosen cake from sides of pan; invert onto rack. remove waxed paper, cool completely.
• Meanwhile, prepare cream cheese Frosting. Place cake on large platter; spread frosting over top and sides of cake and decorate with candied carrot peels as seen as above.

Cream Cheese frosting:3 cups confectioners’ sugar

2 packages cream cheese(3 ounces each), slightly softened

6 tbsp butter or margarine, softened

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

In large bowl, with mixer at low speed, beat confectioners  sugar, cream cheese, softened butter, and vanilla just blended. Increase speed to medium; beat 1 minute or until smooth and fluffy, scraping bowl often with rubber spatula. Makes about 2 1/2 cups.

Note: I’m very fond of  cakes with fillings, that’s why I baked my cake with 2 layers.

~ by momoftwins on December 24, 2008.