Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

My lab mate Tatiana's birthday was today, so I decided to make her a cake. She doesn't love chocolate cake, and yellow cake is a little boring, so I thought it would be fun to make her a carrot cake. My mom always used to make my dad carrot cake for his birthday when I was growing up, so I knew exactly where to go for the recipe. The cake turned out great and got rave reviews from everyone at work!

Carrot Cake

4 eggs

1 C vegetable oil

2 C sugar

2 C flour

1/2 C finely chopped walnuts

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

3 C (10 oz bag) grated carrots

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Beat eggs, add oil and sugar and beat on medium speed.

3. Combine all dry ingredients and add slowly.

4. Fold in carrots and nuts.

5. Grease 2-8 or 9 inch round baking pans and cover bottom with wax paper.

6. Pour equal amounts of batter into each pan.

7. Bake for 35 minutes.

8. Cool for 10 minutes and then remove from pans and cool completely on wire rack before icing.

Cream Cheese Icing

2 1/2 C powdered sugar, sifted

1/4 C butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla

8 oz cream cheese

1. Cream butter and cream cheese.

2. Add vanilla.

3. Add powdered sugar, slowly, beating after each addition.

4. Beat on high speed to whip.

5. Ice cake and decorate with Wilton Decorator icing (see recipe below).

*For tips on layer cake construction, see Hirsh's Birthday Cake Post.

My roses seem to be getting better!

Wilton Decorator Icing

1/4 C solid vegetable shortening (Crisco with no trans fat)

1/2 stick butter, room temperature

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 C powdered sugar, sifted

1 tbsp milk

1. Cream butter and shortening with electric mixer.

2. Add vanilla.

3. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating on medium speed.

4. Add milk and beat on high speed until light and fluffy.

5. Separate into individual containers and add food coloring as desired. The best food coloring to use is solid food color (add dabs with a toothpick and then mix with an icing knife or spoon) since this will not dilute the icing like liquid food coloring.

Difficulty: Hard

Debbie's Rating: 9.5-- there was less cream cheese icing than I would have liked, so I had to be kind of stingy on the cake. I would probably 1.5x the recipe next time to make sure I had enough.

Tatiana and coworker's rating: They loved it! Both taste and presentation. :-)