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I can’t believe I haven’t already made carrot cake a million times, since I love to make Zucchini Bread, and of course, am always making Pumpkin Bread, but this is the fist time I’ve done a post about Carrot Cake. I like my carrot cake without raisins or nuts, so some will say that this is a stripped down version of carrot cake, but the flavor was great and it was moist too, so I’m sticking with this version.
I took a shortcut with the carrots and used a bag of shredded carrots I bought at the grocery store. I did pop the shredded carrots into my Cuisinart Mini Prep to make them even smaller, but it was super easy to start with the carrots already shredded.
To make the carrot with icing, I set a side two different reserves. One I added red and yellow food coloring to make orange and the other one, I added green. I put these into two sandwich bags and cut a little corner off. I squeezed the orange icing out back and forth to make a snaky carrot shape and then repeated for the green part.
- 1½ cups vegetable oil
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 4 eggs
- 2 Tbsp Pumpkin Pie spice
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 2 cups All-Purpose Flour
- 3 cups finely grated carrots
- For the icing:
- ½ cup butter, softened
- (1) 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
- ¼ tsp salt
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 2½ cups confectioners' sugar
- Additional milk as necessary
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray a 9" x 13" pan with cooking spray (or two 9-inch round layer pans) .
- Beat the eggs into the oil and then beat in the sugar, salt, and spices. Mix the flour with the baking soda, and stir in. Add the carrots and mix until just blended. Pour into the prepared pan(s).
- Bake the cake(s) for 35 to 40 minutes, or until an inserted knife comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before frosting.
- For the frosting:
- Beat the butter and cream cheese together until smooth.
- Add the salt and vanilla and beat in with the sugar.
- Add a teaspoon of milk if the frosting is too stiff to spread; add additional sugar if it's too thin.