Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Carrot cake has really been around a long time.  I remember my mother telling me that when she started making it in the 1950s, it was sort of regarded as a “healthy” dessert. Of course, her early versions pre-dated the cream cheese icing that we all like so much these days.  In the 1960s, she switched to a recipe that she found in the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook which was titled Carrot-Pineapple Cake that called for the cake to be frosted with Cream Cheese icing—and that was her new favorite.

My recipe also includes pineapple and is adapted from Ina Garten’s version.  You really don’t taste the pineapple so much—it just keeps the cake very, very moist.  I recently made this for a friend’s birthday—and was rewarded with kudos and an empty platter.

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

8 servings

Preparation Time:  30 minutes
Cook Time:  1 hour

Ingredients for the cake:

2 cups sugar
1 1/3 cups vegetable oil
3 eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 cup chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts are my favorites)
1 pound carrots, grated (I use the food processor to do this quickly)
½ cup crushed pineapple

Ingredients for the frosting:

12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
2 sticks of butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 box (1 pound) confectioner’s sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Butter 2 8-inch round cake pans.  Line the bottoms with rounds of parchment paper and then butter and flour the pans.

Combine the sugar, oil, vanilla and eggs in a large bowl and beat with a mixer until well combined.   In another bowl, sift together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt.

Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and combine well.  Stir in the nuts, grated carrots and crushed pineapple and then divide the batter between the two pans.  Bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Place the pans on wire racks to cool completely before icing.

To make the icing, combine the cream cheese, butter and vanilla in a large bowl and blend thoroughly with an electric mixer.  Add the sugar and beat until smooth.

Put one layer of the cake on a serving plate and spread the top with a layer of frosting.  Put the second layer on top, and spread the remaining frosting on the top and the sides of the cake, swirling attractively as you go.  Keep this cake refrigerated, and take it out about 30 minutes before you want to serve it.  It is good the day you make it and for days thereafter, but it won’t last that long.