My wonderful 8 going on 40 year old son Walker has recently gone on another health kick. Usually, he comes home from school and has an hour of down time before any afternoon activities or before he does his homework. He, of course, goes right to the refrigerator to get a snack which is typically lemonade and a bag of chips. Well, now he has turned in the bag of chips for “long carrots” as he calls them (as opposed to the mini carrots that come already peeled). I know he must love the taste of carrots, but I think he has more fun peeling the carrots and carving them up into different shapes before he eats them. I came downstairs the other day to find carrot peeling all over the sink, counter and window behind the sink. Exasperated, I asked him how he got peelings everywhere. He replied that he just peels carrots so fast, like a ninja, that they fly all over the place and then proceeded to show me. He is too funny, and it is impossible to get mad at him for carrot peelings all over the kitchen when he is a self proclaimed carrot ninja. He also has taken to cutting his carrots into pipes or different animals. I googled “carrot art” today and am not sure whether or not I should show this to him as he will have me buy all the carrots in the store so he can try to make something similar.
So with all the carrots in my house now, I guess a carrot cake is necessary. I looked up a bunch of carrot cake recipes, and surprisingly, a lot of them had pineapple or cranberry or some other type of fruit or nut. I was just after a plain carrot cake with cream cheese icing (which makes everything better), and this seemed to be the best one. Let me know if you have a better recipe!!
Ingredient for Carrot Cake:
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 cups sugar
1 cup oil
4 eggs
3 cups shredded carrots
Directions:
Mix all dry ingredients
Add sugar, oil and eggs
Mix well
Add carrots, mix well
Bake at 350 for 1 hour
Ingredients for Cream Cheese Icing:
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions:
In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy
Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the confectioners’ sugar
Store in the refrigerator after use
