Carrot Cake

I decided to scour Pinterest for Carrot Cake recipes.  I was kicking myself for not making a Carrot Cake for Easter and I think I kinda scored on my find.  This has a light fluffy cake, but is stuffed with carrots, pineapple, and nuts so it does have a good chew to it.  If you are looking for a light cupcake you might not find it with this one.  This is more on the dense, fill your belly side.  I started off with the recipe from blueribbonkitchen.blogspot.com.   Then I twisted up a little bit and added my own flare so here are the basics:

Take all the dry ingredients and throw them in your mixer.  I used the whisk attachment.  give them a plus or three to get them all nice and fluffy and stirred up.  Next get all of those wet ingredients in a separate bowl.  Excluding all the fruit, nuts, and carrots.

I used a hand whisk and mixed it all up nicely. 

It helps them come together really nicely if they are at room temperature

Next, I toasted up some coconut and pecans.  I put the sweetened coconut flakes down in my broiler and let them go for about 4 minutes until the tops gained a little brown.  The pecan I threw on a cookie sheet in the oven at 350 degrees till they started to sweat out a bit it took about 5 minutes and they had an aroma to them.   I then threw the pecans in my food processor for about 5 pulses. 

The carrots, I grated up my carrots.  Ok, people, the big carrots in the bag are so good for this so go big and get yourself the big carrots at the store, or be super fancy and grown them in your garden.  Then you can see your kids walk around like this too!

I used three big carrots for this recipe.  Luckily I had four left in the bag! So grate those up and put them in the food processor for a pulse so they are in nice little pieces.

Pineapple time.  I used a kitchen strainer over a cup and I put spoon fulls of pineapple in that and pressed the juice out of it.  That way I had super drained pineapple so my cakes weren't too wet.  That will be your enemy in the baking process with these over wet batter! Extra bonus drink that yummy pineapple juice left overs...

  We've got everything now. Slowly mix your wet stuff in the the dry in the mixer incorporate well and then add all of the goodness, carrots, coconut, pineapple, and pecans.

Spoon it into prepared cake pans or lined cupcake tins. bake that baby. my cupcakes took about 21 minutes for me but my oven is slow so check them at 18.  Make sure a toothpick comes out clean. 

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon of ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 large eggs-room temperature

2 cups granulated sugar

3/4 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup buttermilk-room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups of finely grated carrot (What I did here was I grated my carrots then threw them in the food processor and sent them spinning twice.)

3/4 cup of very well drained pineapple

1/2 cup flaked coconut toasted in the oven for a few minutes

1 cup chopped toasted pecans

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix try ingredients, mix wet ingredients. Grate and pulse carrots and nuts.  Drain pineapple very very well, and toast coconut.  Thoroughly mix into batter.  Fill cupcake liners, or three well prepared 9" circle pans.  I recommend putting wax paper into the bottom of cake pans, and flouring the sides after nonstick spray or butter.

Pour batter into prepared cake pans.  

Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the cakes.

Let cakes rest on wire rack for 10 minutes.

Remove cakes from the very warm pans after 10 minutes, remove and discard the parchment paper.  Let cool.

Once cakes are at room temperature, spread the frosting between the cake layers, on the sides and top of cake.  This is not the final coat, this is only the crumb-coat.

Chill cake in the refrigerator for 30-60 minutes, then apply a final coating of the frosting, add nuts to the sides for garnish. 

Refrigerate cake overnight, up to 24 hours and then serve. 

For cupcakes, this recipe makes 36 cupcakes.  Use cupcake liners, fill cups 3/4 full, bake for 18

-21

 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

I took the cupcakes and put them in the fridge once they cooled for half and hour then frosted them.  I would have put them back in the fridge in a sealed container after they were frosted but they didn't last that long!  Waaaayyy too good!!!  I think I'll be making this cake in cake form in the near future!!

 Some of these cupcakes didn't even make it to the frosting process... yeah they are that good!

Brown Sugar Cream Cheese frosting:  

8oz block of cream cheese softened

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup of butter softened

3 cups of powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

dash of heavy whipping cream

Whip cream cheese and butter in a mixer till light and fluffy.  Add in vanilla, then slowly add brown sugar, then powdered.  Whip it for a minute then add heavy whipping cream till you achieve your desired texture!  

I topped mine with a sprinkle of extra toasted coconut!   Enjoy!

I love the look of double liners on cupcakes! check out these super cute ones...