RECIPE: Carrot Cake

I made this cake with a couple of my friends last month because I have always been fascinated that carrots could go into a cake. I won't lie and say it's particularly healthy, but you can always pretend I did. I call it the pantry carrot cake because if you're really lucky you can throw it together with what you have in the baking pantry and the fridge. All we needed to get was a bushel of carrots and some cream cheese.

Carrot Cake

(modified from Autumn/Fall's Carrot Cake Recipe on Allrecipes.com and this frosting recipe at recipetips.com)

1.5 cups sugar

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon 

1 tsp baking soda

1.5 cups vegetable oil

4 eggs

1 lb bag of carrots

1 cup pecans, plus more for sprinkling on top

3 ounces cream cheese

.5 stick butter

2 cups powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla 

1. Preheat over to 350 F. Use some butter on a paper towel to grease a bundt pan. (I call it a butt-pan, but you probably didn't need to know that.)
2. Have some poor sucker grate the carrots. You should get about 3 cups. Crush the pecans.
3. Combine the first five ingredients in a large bowl (sugar, flour, salt, cinnamon, baking soda, oil). Beat eggs in one at a time. Stir in the carrots and pecans.
4. Pour into pan and bake at 350 F for at least an hour, potentially up to an hour and a half. Check if it's ready by seeing if a toothpick comes out clean. As hard as it is, let it cool (or cheat and stick it in the fridge) before frosting!
5. Make frosting by blending the cream cheese and butter well, adding the sugar and vanilla, and mixing vigorously until it gets the nice whipped texture.

The final steps, of course, are frosting the cake, licking the frosting bowl clean, then eating carrot cake until you feel a little sick.