Itsy Bitsy Foodies

Maybe it’s the thought of Easter bunnies munching on carrots but carrot cake makes me think of spring and Easter.  In reality, the warm, spicy flavors of ginger and cinnamon make this an equally satisfying treat during the fall and winter or any other time of year.  It is denser than many cakes and very similar to a quick bread. 

After looking through my cookbooks I realized that my family’s pumpkin bread recipe is pretty similar to many of the carrot cake recipes that I found.  Because we love our pumpkin bread so much I decided to use our recipe.  I substituted grated carrots for the pumpkins (just like I did with the zucchini bread last summer) and I used ginger instead of nutmeg.  I decorated the bars with cream cheese frosting and piped little carrots on each slice using cream cheese frosting colored with natural dyes from carrot and spinach juice.

When unfrosted, the carrot cake bars are just like a muffin or a piece of sweet bread {which is how my boys preferred it}.  Frosting the carrot cake simply takes it up a notch to dessert status, either in cupcake or cake form.  The recipe makes four 9-inch cake rounds or the equivalent in cupcakes.  I made a half batch of cream cheese frosting so that we could enjoy the carrot cake both ways.  If you are one of the people that like raisins, pineapple, coconut or nuts in your carrot cake, I will leave that up to you because I prefer mine plain.

*I have read many places about substituting applesauce for oil and though I’ve baked quite a bit with yogurt and Greek yogurt I have yet to try the applesauce versions.  I thought that it would be interesting to be able to try the different versions side by side so as an experiment I divided the recipe into fourths and made one pan of regular cake, one pan of cake with applesauce instead of the oil, one pan of cake with yogurt instead of the oil and one pan of cake with half oil and half yogurt.  After reading a tip in Cooking Light a while ago, I finished mixing the batter by hand so as not to overbeat the batter.  I was surprised that when sampled side by side there was not a drastic difference in the texture of the cake.  The biggest difference was in flavor, the full-oil version being the richest and having the most depth in flavor.  The applesauce version was a close second.  It was interesting that all versions were good – both of my sons devoured all of them equally.  And especially when topped with cream cheese frosting, the taste differences were not really noticeable.