My Favorite; Carrot Cake

I've always big a BIG fan of carrot cake, particularly because I love the frosting! (I've actually bought a slice just to lick off the frosting!) This week, I decided to take a break from baking the usual chocolate chip banana bread my husband lives for and try my hand at my favorite. My carrot cake came out really delicious and disappeared way faster than I could have imagined! Note, the recipe posted below is meant for a larger cake, which requires making, stacking and frosting three separate cakes to form a layered carrot cake. I modified the recipe and used 2/3 of all the ingredients to make a single, larger, cake.!

Cake Ingredients

Butter for greasing baking pan

2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups sugar

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

4 eggs

1.5 cups vegetable oil

3 cups grated carrots

1 cup chopped pecans

4 rings canned pineapple, cut into chunks

Start by preheating the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9 inch pan with some butter. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt

Blend all the ingredients with a handheld mixer.

Add the pineapple, carrots and pecans. Pour into a greased 9 inch pan and bake for 40-60 minutes or until browned on top. I say 40-60 minutes because everyone's oven is different and while the original recipe called for 40, mine required an hour. Some may need more time than others.

Frosting Ingredients

2 8oz packages of cream cheese, room temp

1 stick unsalted better

powdered sugar, to taste

1 tsp vanilla extract

To make the frosting, whip together all the ingredients in a bowl. I don't specify the amount of powdered sugar because the original recipe calls for what I think is way too much, plus, people have different palettes for sweetness. I'd mix the other ingredients together and then go adding one tbsp of sugar at a time until it reaches the level of sweetness you're comfortable with.

Once the cake has completely cooled, spread the frosting all over the cake.

You'll watch this cake disappear quickly, trust me! Mine did :)