Saturday, March 6, 2010

Carrot Cake with Creamy Frosting

This tasty little treat is just in time for Easter!
So my daughters 2nd birthday is this weekend and I was looking for a yummy recipe that was light on the sugar and BIG on flavor- so I combined 2 -3 different recipes and came up with this little treat. They are flavorful and filling, they are dense like a normal carrot cake and yet unusual with the addition of the lemon zest and nutmeg. You can make this in a loaf pan or cupcakes or perhaps even in a sheet cake. The frosting has no sugar and you can make it as sweet as you like by adding more or less honey.

Directions:
Super simple. Take out your cream cheese brick so it can soften while you prep. Combine your dry ingredients in a bowl, then your wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Then add your dry ingredients into your wet and mix thoroughly. Now, if you use a pan you may want to spray it first or rub some butter on it to prevent sticking, I used cupcake liners and it was fine, but if you are concerned about them sticking to the cupcake liners you can add 2 TBSP melted butter to the recipe. Bake them at 350 and keep an eye on them- cupcakes took about 15-18 minutes (use a toothpick to test them) and a loaf pan could take up to 50 minutes or more. Sorry I don't have better time estimates- I ALWAYS forget to set my timer and end up watching everything by eye!

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour, I used whole wheat but you can use white
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 TBSP cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg


Wet Ingredients:
2 eggs
1/4 cup applesauce (I substituted apple sauce for oil)
1 1/2 TBSP Molasses
1 TBSP vanilla
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup pecans, chopped
1 1/2 tsp lemon zest
2 cups freshly grated carrots


Frosting Ingredients:
1 brick of cream cheese
1 tsp cinnamon
3-4 TBSP honey (or more to taste depending on how sweet you like it)
1 drizzle of vanilla

1 comment:

Holly said...

I tried this over the weekend, but I left out the raisins. It was a good low fat dessert. I even found low fat cream cheese... I like cakes a bit moister so I think next time I'll put in more applesauce. (There will be a next time for sure!) I made it as a sheet cake and it was finished in roughly 40 minutes. It could have been less, actually. Thanks for a guilt-free dessert option.