Super Bitchin’ Carrot Cakes

They may not save the world, but they’ll sure make you feel better while you try.

I got this recipe from Jesse’s wife, Lara. Strikethroughs and square brackets are my variations.

• 1/3 c veg oil pureed apples [I didn’t have any oil on hand, but it turns out baking with pureed apples yields a supermoist product, so I’m not sure if I’ll ever use oil again except – maybe – in the case of needing a lighter-colored crumb.]
• 1/4c 2tbs brown sug [because I used the apples, I chose to halve the brown sugar so the cakes didn’t get too sweet]
• 1 egg
• 1/2 Tbsp water [no need to put the water in because of apples]
• 1 c grated (or shredded) carrot
• 3/4 c [whole wheat pastry] flour
• 1/4 tsp b. soda
• 1/2 tsp b. powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. cinn
• handful of chopped walnuts almonds [I don’t usually have walnuts around because they’re not my favorite]

Basically, cream together wet stuff and then combine dry stuff and then mix the two together – just like a muffin. You can pour the cake batter into a properly prepared cake pan, or you can put them in to a muffin pan, like I did. I prefer the muffin pan because you can have smaller, individual cakes that can be stored for later lovin’.

This recipe is already halved. It should yield about nine muffin sized cakes or one small cake.

Because we didn’t use any oil in the cake, I thought it’d be nice to have some frosting, so I mixed up a traditional butter cream cheese frosting, though from the original recipe, I cut half the butter and 30% of the sugar because I prefer more of a cream cheese taste than sweet.

Frosting:

• 4oz lowfat cream cheese (it’s what I had on hand, but by all means if you have fully loaded cream cheese go for it!)
• 1tbs butter (please don’t use margarine, ever)
• 1/4tsp flavoring. Most people choose vanilla, but I happened to have Almond on hand, and since I used almonds in the cakes, I thought this would be a nice switcharoo.
• 1/4c sifted confectioners sugar

Cream the butter and cheese together with a fork or some sort of creaming device (whatever that is for you, I will not judge). Sift into creamed mixture a little confectioners sugar at a time. Sweeten to taste.

Nutritional Data for the Cake (my muffin pan is small, so it yields more cakes and therefore lightens the load a bit.)

Nutritional Data for the Frosting

I didn’t run the numbers through NutritionData.com until after I made the cakes. I’m surprised at what a lovely little 100calorie package this turns out to be. Sweet action.