Scrimpulous: Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting

Lady LaLa (Alice) just turned a year old. Of course I made her a cake, I wasn't about to go out and buy her something from the store. I find that store bought cakes tend to have a way too sweet, greasy feeling frosting that seems like it's made with lard instead of real butter and usually only come in 2 flavors: white or brown. Not to mention the preservatives and whatnot they may contain, not something I want to give to a one year old. I could have made her a cake from a box but I wanted something with real veggies in it.

I used 2 large carrots in this and it came out to about 2 cups of carrots but you could also add zucchini if you like and it probably would be pretty good.

For the cake:

2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup milk
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups grated carrots

Ingredients

Cream Cheese Icing

half batch buttercream frosting (mine was leftover from the brownies)
1/2 container (or brick) cream cheese
2 tablespoons cream

I didn't bother taking any photos of the icing being mixed, just dump everything together and whip on high. It should be nice and creamy and glossy looking. I always make my icing first so that the mixer bowl doesn't have to be washed out since it's just basically sugar.


Frosting

Start by preheating the oven to 350. Then get the sugar, oil, and milk mixing while you grate the carrot. Mix in the egg.

Now add the carrot, you will probably have to scrape the bowl down a couple of times to make sure it's all combined.

Now mix in all of the dry stuff.

And scrape the bowl down again, it's a pain but it's pretty thick batter so flour gets left around the outside of the bowl.

Pour into whatever baking pan you would like to use. Here I'm using a silicone loaf pan and a ramekin dish. I greased the ramekin dish so the mini cake would come out easily. If you're using metal or glass pans I recommend doing the same.

I don't recommend using a loaf pan, this thing took forever to cook because it was so thick, well over an hour, I actually lost track of how long it was in the oven. A sheet cake pan or similar would probably be best or 2 smaller cake pans. It should take between 35-50 minutes to bake if you use the proper pans. Just start poking the cake with a toothpick or sharp knife around the 30 minute point and when it comes out clean then the cake it done. The tiny cake took about 35 minutes to bake.

Let cool until just warm and frost. I didn't get a picture of the loaf cake frosted since it was still in the oven when the smaller one was cooled enough to frost and serve.