Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Prior to Easter, the food blog world was flooded with cute, pastel-candy-inspired-embellished baked goods. There were so many ideas for Easter themed baked goods, it was a tad overwhelming. Personally, I'd rather eat something that tastes good, then looks pretty when decorated. Hence, I made carrot cake.

This carrot cake is absolutely delicious. It is light, moist, and includes only the essential ingredients. This recipe is from one of my mom's friends, who I will call "D." Over spring break my mom brought bake a couple of D's carrot cake slices home. I ended up eating all of them over the course of a couple evenings.

D created a wonderful version of carrot cake. It incorporates whole wheat flour, less cream cheese (which results in the perfect amount of frosting), less sugar, and crushed pineapple! Apparently pineapple is a 'common secret,' amongst carrot cake recipes, as I discovered on the web, but this was the first time I had ever eaten a carrot cake infused with pineapple.

I believe the pineapple is the key ingredient. It keeps this cake nice and moist for days on end. The extra pineapple juice is not left to waste, and instead placed in the frosting, adding a nice hint of natural sweetness.

Although I am not a big fan of fruits, I am a huge fan of carrots, and I am an even bigger fan of this cake.  It is super moist and fluffy. The shredded carrots add a wonderful texture in every bite. Hints of cinnamon spice up every mouthful. And the pineapple really elevates the tang of the cream cheese frosting.

This recipe made a large pan of carrot cake. The cake was gone in two days flat (which mind you was mainly consumed by only three people since all of my roommates, except myself and one other one went home for Easter weekend!). The only thing that may defer you from baking this, is the process of shredding the carrots. However, if you are like me and acquire a handy baking assistant, who was awesome in shredding all of my carrots, while I prepared all of the other ingredients, then your timing will be perfect. Enjoy!

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Adapted from D

Yields: 18-20 Small Square Pieces

Ingredients:

1 Cup Whole Wheat Flour

1 Cup All-Purpose Flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

3 medium carrots; grated

1 can crushed pineapple in juice (8 oz can)

3 tablespoons canola oil 

2 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 oz reduced-fat cream cheese

2 cups confectioner's sugar

Steps:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.

2. Measure flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and sugar into a large bowl; stir to combine.

3. Peel and grate carrots (don't do this too far in advance because the edges will turn brown).

4. Drain pineapple and save juice; place in a separate bowl.

5. Add carrots, pineapple, 3 tablespoons of pineapple juice, oil, eggs and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract to dry ingredients and stir until well blended.

6. Scrape batter into baking pan; smooth top with rubber spatula.

7. bake 30-35 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely in pan.

8. Make frosting by stirring together room-temperature cream cheese, confectioner's sugar, 1 tablespoon pineapple juice and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.

9. Spread icing on cake and decorate if desired.

10. Cake will keep up to a week, wrapped and refrigerated.

What I Did Differently:

1. I bought cubed pineapple by accident, so I crushed the chunks by hand with a fork and knife. It added some extra time to the baking process, but it still worked out. I would put the pineapple juice in a separate bowlt to make it easier for measuring. 

2. I used about half a container of cream cheese, therefore a little more than 3 oz of cream cheese for the frosting.

3. All of the modifications above were thanks to D, I just listed the instructions out slightly differently.