Carrot Cake

Jess is in school and I am almost back onto a routine: Lord, I can't wait to get my life back in order. It has been a great summer, but nothing has gotten done. I spent one whole day just cleaning bathrooms and scrubbing floors....

But, now I am back to trying out my recipes. I have had a few strike outs this week. I don't think it was the recipes really we didn't like but rather the zucchini I was using. I was trying to get through the last of the garden zucchini, but it was bad for some reason. I made a quiche but the zucchini in that was tasteless and had large, tough seeds in it (no, it wasn't a huge zucchini either). Then I tried a turkey/veggie sloppy joe. That zucchini had skin as tough as nails.... I then, at Aaron's very strong request, threw out all the rest of the zucchini: we are done with that, it's SO not worth it.

I did have an amazing conquest however. Alex brought me over a big bag of carrots from his garden. Hmm.... what to do with all those carrots? Well, carrot cake sounds good. And boy howdy, it was a-maz-ing! One of the best carrot cakes I have ever had - a definite keeper.



Ingredients

2 1/2 cups grated carrots
3 large eggs
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 cups flour
Orange Cream Frosting (below)

Directions

1. Heat oven to 300 degrees. Grease and flour two round cake pans: set aside.
2. In a large bowl beat together the carrots, eggs, buttermilk, vanilla, sugar  and vegetable oil until light and fluffy.
3. In a medium bowl mix together ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt and flour until completely combined. Fold into the large bowl with the carrot mixture.
4. Divide the batter evenly between your two cake pans and bake for 45-60 minutes, or until a inserted toothpick comes out clean.
5. Cool in pans for 15 minutes, then put on a rack to continue cooling completely. Frost with the orange cream frosting.

Orange Cream Frosting

Ingredients

1/2 cup room temperature butter

2 packages (16 oz) cream cheese

1 Tb. orange zest

1 tsp ginger

1/2-1 tsp nutmeg

2 cups powdered sugar

Directions

1. Place butter and cream cheese in a mixing bowl and mix on med-high speed until light and fluffy. Beat in spices.
2. Mix in powdered sugar a little at a time until it all has been added and beat 3-5 minutes to make your frosting really light.
3. Frost cake..... it also tastes amazing on graham crackers!