CARROT CAKE

Another one of my daughter's delicious sweets. As I don't like the buttercream, I really liked this cream cheese frosting she made to use for her carrot cake.

CARROT CAKE

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup cooking oil
4 eggs
4 cups shredded carrots
1 cup raisins (optional)
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 F degrees. Sift the flour into a bowl and mix with sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Add the oil and eggs to the flour mixture. Mix on low speed first until the flour is moistened and then turn the mixer to medium speed and mix until all the ingredients are just combined. With a spatula fold in the carrots, raisins and walnuts. Scrape the bottom of the bowl to make sure everything is evenly blended. Fill a 9x13 inch baking pan 1/2 full with the batter and bake 50-55 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Let the cake cool on a cooling rack before you frost it.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

Two 8-ounce packages of cream cheese- softened
1 stick butter- softened
2 cups of powdered sugar
Vanilla sugar
Zest of 1 orange

Add everything in a large bowl. Mix on medium until the forsting is smooth and fluffy.

Frost the cooled cake with cream cheese frosting. Save a little bit of the frosting if you like and color some orange and some green. Pipe carrot shapes on the cake.