Sunday, April 4, 2010

Carrot Cake for Easter

Happy Easter! We are off to our friends house for an Easter Egg hunt after church. I'm bring the dessert and thought a carrot cake would be perfect for the Spring. I found this recipe at www.allrecipes.com and added my own spin to it.

Carrot Cake
4 cups of ground carrots
2 (15 oz) cans of crushed pineapple (drained)
1 and 1/2 cups of vegetable oil
2 cups of sugar
6 eggs
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup of coconut
1and 1/2 cups of raisins

1. Preheat your oven to 375 deg. and then grease and flour 2 round cake pans. I also like to place some parchment paper at the bottom of my pan. It just gives the cake a nice finished look once it's baked.
( Please pay no mind to the pasty white arms...the flash was on, and ummm it's been a long Winter)
2. Peal and grind four cups of carrots. Here's a tip...so you don't have orange hands grate the carrots with plastic gloves on or even a plastic bag over your hands will work. Also laying down something to protect your counters from getting stained is a good idea.
 3. In a large bowl combine all the ingredients. (add the raisins last)
4. Pour batter into prepared pans and bake for 45min. or until you can pull a tooth pick out of the center of the cake without anything on it. My pans were looking a little full before I put them in the oven, so I put the extra batter into a muffin pan.
Make sure to add water to the empty muffin cups.


Now for the supper yummy cream cheese frosting!!!
1 (8oz) package of cream cheese
1 and 3/4 cups of powered sugar
1/8 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (not the fake stuff please)
1 and 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream
1. First put a small bowl and the beaters to your hand held mixer in the freezer. You want them to be nice and cold when you mix your whip cream.
2. In a small bowl (the one you had in the freezer) beat whipping cream until stiff peaks form; set aside.
See this is what it should look like. :)
3. In a large bowl combine cream cheese, powered sugar, salt, and vanilla. Beat this mixture until it's smooth.
4. Fold in the cream cheese mixture into the whipped cream carefully!
5. Chill the frosting until you are ready to frost your cake.
It's okay if there are some lumps in your frosting...it gives it that homemade look. :)

I also tried to add some "carrots" made out of store bought frosting. They look more like orange peppers! Oh well I tried. ha ha!
 I realized that I had pealed too many carrots so I just chopped them up and made some ranch and dill dip to go with them. It made a great addition to our dinner that night.


Ranch and Dill Dip
Ranch (sold in powered form)
Sour cream
Dill

I just put about half a cup of sour cream in a small bowl. Then about a tablespoon of the Ranch powder goes on top along with a sprinkle of dill. Then I mix it up cover and let it chill in the refrigerator until dinner is ready. See easy!
Hope you have a blessed Easter with your Family and friends.

2 comments:

  1. I'm so glad you posted this recipe. We've been talking about how good this cake is ever since you made it for Ryan's birthday in February.

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  2. YUM! I can't wait to try that in my new kitchen... and i'll have to be sure to protect my counters :)

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