Carrot Cake

Hello, again!  I searched high and low for a moist, rich carrot cake and stumbled upon Rachael Ray's recipe.  With a few tweaks, I am happy to say this is by far the best carrot cake I have tried and will make again for future occasions.  If you are a carrot cake lover, this cake is for you!





Yield: 12 servings


Ingredients:

For the cake:
- 2 c. granulated sugar
- 3/4 c. vegetable oil
- 3/4 c. applesauce
- 4 large eggs
- 2 c. sifted cake flour
- 2 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. salt
- 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp. ground allspice
- 3 c. grated carrots
- 4 oz. chopped walnuts

For the frosting:
- 8 oz. (1 pkg) cream cheese
- 1/2 c. softened butter
- 4 c. powdered sugar
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F and spray the two 9-inch round cake pans.  In a large mixing bowl, mix the sugar, vegetable oil, applesauce, and 4 eggs.  In another mixing bowl, sift together cake flour, baking soda, salt, and spices (I used a fork to mix these dry ingredients together). 

Cake flour ingredients (All- Purpose flour and corn starch)

 Fold dry ingredients into wet mixture and blend well.

Fold in carrots and chopped nuts until well blended.  Distribute the batter into 2 greased 9-in. round cake pans. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes.

 

Cool in pans for approximately 1 hour.  

Next, refrigerate the cake layers in their pans, inverted, for about 24 hours. When inverting the cake layers, place a paper towel on top of the plate before inverting the cake to soak up any remaining oil overnight.
 

To make the frosting, combine the butter, cream cheese, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl.  Beat the mixture until it is smooth and creamy.  Remove the paper towel from the first layer and frost the first cooled cake.  Place the next layer on top and use remaining frosting for the second layer.  

This recipe is based on Rachael Ray's Carrot Cake recipe.