Carrot Cake

Last weekend I had both Paul and my families over for lunch after church for Finley's dedication. We had a pasta bar with bolognese, marinara, bowtie pasta, cheese ravioli, garlic bread, salad, etc. For dessert I wanted something other than a traditional cake. After wracking my brain all week long, I finally came up with it - CARROT CAKE.

I don't care that we're in the dead of winter and its more of a spring food, who cares. It sounded good and that's what I made. Needless to say - IT. WAS. AWESOME. I may or may not have had a piece (or two) when I came home from my run the next day. Ahh.... I wish there was more left over.... oh well.

Original recipe provides:
525 calories
29.7 g fat
62.1 g carbohydrate
1.2 g fiber
4.5 g protein

Now I realize that dessert is dessert and I should try to make it the best thing ever for me, but I did make a few alterations. I got the original recipe from food.com . The recipe does call for this to be made as a three layer cake. That is WAY too much work for me, so I did it in a 9x13 pan - WAY EASIER. The only substitutions that I made was that I substituted the oil with unsweetened applesauce (surprise! I always do that...) and for the frosting I used fat free cream cheese instead of it's full fat counterpart. You would have never known the difference!

Carrot Cake - BETTER

1 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 cups flour (you could probably use whole wheat flour although I did not)
2 tsp baking soda
1 pinch salt
3 cups grated carrots
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla

Icing
1/4 cup butter
8 oz fat free cream cheese
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Beat applesauce and sugar, then add eggs. Mix in the rest of the cake ingredients in the order given. Beat for 1 minute.

Pour into 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes (This may take a little longer since its in a 9x13, not three 9-inch cake pans).

Once cake has completely cooled, mix the butter and fat free cream cheese together until smooth, then add sugar a little at a time. Beat until smooth. Frost cooled cake.

Makes 18 servings.
318 calories
4.6 g fat
65.1 g carbohydrate
1.4 g fiber
5.5 g protein