Carrot Cake

Our puppy loves to dig and decided to take it upon himself to harvest our backyard carrots. To rid him of this naughty behavior I had no choice but to harvest them all at once. My husband and I can only eat so many carrots at dinner, and I didn't want them to go to waste, so I decided to make carrot cake. For some reason I've always been a bit intimated by it but I really needed to use those carrots! I found a recipe online, and in the process made a few tweaks. I was really happy in how it turned out. Very moist, and not too sweet. We ate it over a week and the moisture endured.

CARROT CAKE

18 Servings

Cake

4 eggs

3/4 cup of canola oil

1/2 cup of apple sauce

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups of all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg

3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

3 cups of grated carrots

1 8oz can of crushed pineapple (remove excess juice)

1/2 cup of chopped pecans

Frosting

1/2 cup softened butter

8 oz softened cream cheese

2 cups confectioners sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 inch pan.

2. In a large bowl beat together eggs, oil, apple sauce, sugar and vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. Stir in carrots and pineapple. Fold in pecans and pour into prepared pan.

3. Bake for 40-50 minutes. Let cool in pan for at least 10 minutes.

4. To make frosting, in a medium bowl combine butter, cream cheese, confectioner's sugar and vanilla. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy.