Carrot Cake

I will start off this post by apologizing that I have no pictures of today's recipe.  It's not like me to forget, but I think you will understand the situation when I explain!

It was Wednesday night of the last week of school.  Thursday was going to be Kenzie's and my last day at school, since the last day fell on a Friday which also happened to be the golf tournament.  We were frantically writing out thank you cards to people that we won't be seeing again till the end of August, and talking about how good so many people were to us in the last two terrible months.  That's when I mentioned that I had thought about baking something to leave in the office (teachers love baked goods in the office) but by now it was 9:00 at night.  However, Kenz loved the idea, and somehow I settled on the idea of making a carrot cake.  I had made carrot cake before , but that recipe was a three-layer cake, and for this one, I wanted a sheet cake (for ease of transport!).  When I Googled carrot sheet cake, I found the Pioneer Woman's recipe, and since she is usually very trustworthy, I decided at 9 PM to make two carrot sheet cakes : one for work, and one because my mom informed me that it was cruel to make one of her favorite cakes and take it away!

The good news was that it came together pretty quickly, with the use of my food processor to grate 2 cups of carrots.  Once I got the batter done, it was time to pour it into 2 separate sheet cake pans.  This was harder to do than I thought, and I think I shortchanged my family's cake because it ended up being a lot thinner than the school cake!  But then into the oven they went, and I could focus on making the cream cheese frosting.  Although I doubled the recipe, I did not double the amount of sugar, because I thought that 2 pounds of confectionary sugar was wayyyyy too much.  I am not sure how much I used, but I don't think I even used one pound.  I taste tested along the way and when it tasted fabulous, I considered that done enough!  The recipe asks for pecans to be mixed in, but in case anyone at work had nut allergies, I left them out.  I did sprinkle some on top of our cake for home.

Since by this point it was way past my bedtime, I frosted the cakes way before they were cool, had Mom slice up the work one for me, and headed to bed.  In the morning, I brought the cake in to the office and left a card from me and Kenz.  When I had my prep time at 11:00, I wandered down to see how it was going, and there were only 2 pieces left!  Almost the whole thing had gone in about 3 hours.  I told you, teachers love baked goods in the office!  I got 3 emails requesting the recipe, and lots of rave reviews.  So, I never actually tried the cake, but if we let my coworkers vouch for the cake, it must have been good :)

Recipe:

carrot cake
from the Pioneer Woman

Ingredients:
FOR CAKE:
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 whole eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cups grated carrots

FOR ICING:
1 stick butter, softened
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese
1 pound powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup pecans, finely chopped

Instructions:

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2) Mix together the sugar, oil and eggs in a large bowl.  In another bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon.  Add to the first mixture and combine. Then add carrots and mix well.  Pour into a greased and floured pan (Bundt, sheet cake, or 9 x 13" pyrex)  and bake until done, 25 minutes (sheet cake) to 50 (bunt), depending on the type of pan you used.

3) Cool completely, then ice.

To make icing:
In large bowl, cream butter and cream cheese.  Add sugar and vanilla and blend, then mix in nuts.  Spread on cooled carrot cake.