- Carrot Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

Once there's a nip in the air you can't keep our girl Me away from Epicurious.com or her own recipe stash or the kitchen at all. It's hard for a dog to find a secret time to blog when she is so culinarily obsessed. You know it's because of the holidays. We hounds believe that every week should be treated as a holiday food-wise, but people have their peculiar ways. Me is of a mind to make pies, so no doubt we will serve as testers and (b)log our favorites here in days to come. But today we are using carrots that were on sale with a coupon for only 88 cents to make Me's fabulous and famous, original carrot cake. This is so fabulous that the elder sister Rebecca had Me make it for her wedding cake. That's how fabulous.

Auntie Sue's Own (Fabulous) Carrot Cake
(Susan Brill 1979)

Cake
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon mace
1 teaspoon nutmeg*
¼ cup vegetable oil
¾ cup applesauce
4 eggs
3 ½ cups grated carrots
½ cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)

*(Freshly ground or bust.)

Grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans OR a 13x9 pan.

Sift together four, soda, salt, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg. Set aside.

In separate bowl, beat applesauce, oil and eggs together well. Stir in grated carrot and nuts. Stir in flour mixture until blended, but do not over mix. Pour into prepared pan(s). Bake at 350F about one hour, until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool completely and frost with Cream Cheese Frosting.


Aunt Sue's Own (Marvelous) Cream Cheese Frosting
(Susan Brill ~1979)

½ cup butter (softened)
8 oz. cream cheese (softened)
1 lb. powdered sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons vanilla extract


Blend butter with cream cheese until smooth. Sift in powdered sugar and cinnamon in increments. Blend just until sugar is incorporated each time. Stir in vanilla extract.

Frost cake when it has cooled completely.

(Excellent frosting for Carrot Cake or Zucchini bars.)

Tips from Guthrie: In the years since the advent of Stevia, we make this cake with 1 cup sugar and Stevia equivalent for another cup of sugar. Perfect. There's a great deal of sugar in the frosting so cutting back in the cake is no sacrifice. We like the specks of cinnamon in the frosting, but the pure snowy frosting without it is a beautiful sight too.

Tips from Eli: Lick the frosting bowl clean.