Carrot Cake

This recipe comes by way of Jen T from New Zealand. She found it in a "Taste" magazine in 2006 courtesy of the "Fat Dog Cafe" in Rotorua, NZ.

Don't mind my feeble attempts to decorate this cake. I didn't feel like messing with frosting so made carrots from gumdrops. I think it's a rather ingenious idea! :)

This is a very moist cake.

Carrot Cake - courtesy of the Fat Dog Cafe

1 cup vegetable oil (you could go 1/2 cup oil 1/2 cup applesauce as well)

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

3 eggs lightly beaten

2 cups grated carrots (this is where those grated freezer carrots come in handy)

1 3/4 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup walnuts, roughly chopped

1/4 cup sunflower seeds (plain - NOT shelled. )

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat oil and sugar until well mixed. Add eggs and carrots. Mix thoroughly. Add in remaining ingredients.

Divide between two 9 inch round cake pans. Don't forget to grease and flour them. I forgot to flour mine and it was a bit tricky getting the cakes out of the pans in one piece.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the cakes spring back after pressing lightly. Don't overcook.

Leave cakes in pans for 10 minutes before turning onto cooling rack.

Icing

This icing was a bit overpowering so next time I will use something different. I changed the porportions as well since I was making a layer cake.

12 oz cream cheese, softened

2/3 cup powdered sugar (I would use more of this next time)

1 tsp grated lemon peel

Mix icing ingredients very well. When cake is cool, fill in the middle and frost the cake.

To make the carrots:

I rolled out orange gumdrops in some granulated sugar until flat. Then I rolled up the gumdrops to shape into a carrot shape. The tops - I cut a green gumdrop in half and used scissors to cut almost all the way through to make "tassles" for the carrots. Very elementary.