Takes Like Home: Carrot Cake
My Mom always made these delicious carrot cakes as a special treat. Since carrots are young and juicy this time of year, I thought of trying fresh carrots in this cake recipe. It is modified from a Taste of Home submission, but every so much healthier (1 piece of the original had 516 calories, which is the same as two donuts. Now, no one can enjoy that without guilt or a long hard run):
- ½ cup raisins (or 1 cup if you really like them. Walnuts go well with this too)
- ½ cup prunes, pitted (or you can use 1 medium apple, cored and peeled)
- 1½ cups flour
- ½ cup oats
- 1½ cups brown sugar, not packed
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 Tbs Chef Meg’s pie spice
- 3 eggs
- juice from half an orange and grated peel (optional)
- 3 cups carrots, finely grated
- 1 pkg fat free cream cheese, softened
- up to 2 cups icing sugar (start with 1 and then taste for sweetness. I would use less next time)
- 1 tsp each: vanilla and orange juice (or rum)
The method to make this is very straight forward, but I found the prep took a while because I have a small food processor:
- Soak the prunes in ¼ cup of hot water, puree and set aside.
- Toss the raisins in 1-2 Tbs flour and set them aside too.
- Combine the dry ingredients.
- Add fruit puree and eggs, plus juice and grated peel if using. Beat well.
- Stir in carrots and raisins.
- Grease and flour a 9×13″ pan. Bake the batter at 325F for 50-60 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack.
- Beat cream cheese with flavours until smooth. Sift sugar and slowly add. Beat until light and fluffy. Spread all over the cake and enjoy. Store the left overs (if there are any) in the fridge because there are no preservatives in this.
Serves 18 squares (3 across, 6 down). Nutritional information is on SparkPeople »
My cake was done at 50 minutes. I also used 3 cups of icing sugar (the recipe called for 3¾ cups but it was WAY too much). I might try for just one next time and taste, then increment slowly by ¼ cup.
I took the whole thing to my sisters first to share with a cup of tea and ended up eating two servings. She raved about the taste not knowing there were prunes hidden in the batter, which was great, but also found the icing too sweet and had to scrape it off. Josh it was good!
