Carrot Cake

There is a top secret carrot cake recipe in our family.  It doesn’t belong to my grandmother, my mother, or me.  In fact, we don’t even know it.  The recipe is in the position of my oldest sister. 

She has been making this particular recipe for years.  I want to say 20 years since I remember it from my childhood. Plus my sister is older than me by… well the amount of years isn’t important, but I know she’s been making it since she was a teen.  My sister takes great pride in her carrot cake.  Everyone and their mothers, literally, requests it from her. Now you must think, “she makes it each time someone asks for it? Shouldn’t she just give them the recipe to make themselves?”  And the answer to both would be an absolute “yes”.  However if you ask her, the answer for the latter would be “ABSOLUTELY NOT!” Yes, with that much emphasis.  She’s serious when it come to her carrot cake recipe.

My sister graciously made me carrot cake when I visited her in Palestine this summer.  I ate to my heart’s content and downed one more slice, you know, for the baby.   So when I came home and the craving hit again, my request for the recipe was royally denied.  Even a pregnancy craving wouldn’t break her.  With no choice, I took to the wondrous world wide web to find a recipe that would satisfy my craving.

I’m the type of gal that likes pineapple and nuts in my carrot cake, no raisins.  So this may or may not be the recipe for you.  It was really yummy.  Not quite on the same level as the one my sister makes, but I’m starting to think it’s the sentimental attachment to my sister’s recipe that makes hers taste so good. This one is a great stand in until I can get my hands on another slice from her. 

via my cell phone

Carrot Cake {via The Girl Who Ate Everything}

• 1 cup oil
• 2 cups white sugar
• 3 eggs, beaten well
• 2 cups carrots, peeled and grated finely
• 1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple, undrained
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup chopped pecans (I used walnuts)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix oil, sugar, eggs, carrots, pineapple and vanilla until combined.

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl and add slowly to the wet ingredients.

To make a 9×13 cake, pour into a greased 9×13 baking dish for 45 minutes.

To make a 2 layer cake use 2 round pans and bake for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. If using 2 round pans make sure to really grease or use parchment cut in circles so that your cake comes out clean. Invert cakes into a cooling rack.

When cake has cooled frost with cream cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1lb (4 cups) powdered sugar

Directions:

Beat butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and then powdered sugar one cup at a time, scraping the bowl often. Frost the carrot cake.

The Girl Who Ate Everything (seriously, how great is that name?) suggests increasing the frosting to 1.5 of the original amount.  I would have taken her advice if I had more cream cheese.  It allows you to have more of a filling in the middle.  Plus it’s super good and you’ll just want a bunch of frosting on the cake anyways.

Because I’m not ashamed to admit that I am greatly lacking in the Frost a Cake department, I have to come up with creative ways to disguise the ugly.  Using cookie cutter shapes to “draw” pictures are my favorite trick.  Gently place a cookie cutter in the exact position you want on the cake.  If you move it, you’ll make your already ugly frosting job look worse.  Drop in sprinkles, chopped nuts, fruit pieces (??) inside of the shape.  Gently press down so that the frosting sticks and holds everything in place. Ever so slowly, remove the cookie cutter.  You’re left with something cute that distracts the eye from the part of the cake that somehow didn’t get frosted.