When your garden gives you carrots!

The kids were so excited to harvest the carrots this year even though most of them don't even eat carrots. Unless they don't know they are eating them! One of the things the kids do like is carrot cake but they think it is called that because it always has a carrot made of icing on it. I wasn't going to be the one to tell them it's because it actually has carrots in it.

The carrots were really overcrowded in the garden so I decided to thin it out a little. When I noticed that it looked like the carrots were not able to grow down to far because of some tree roots that run under my raised garden bed. So we ended up harvesting all of the carrots we planted.

After looking at recipes on Pinterest for far to long I settled on this Carrot cake recipe with some modifications because I didn't feel like going to the grocery store to get more supplies.

The BEST Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

This is my favorite recipe for homemade carrot cake! This cake is so easy to make, perfectly moist.

Prep Time2 hours Cook Time35 minutes Total Time2 hours 35 minutes

Servings10 slices

INGREDIENTS For the carrot cake:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour (leveled)

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 3/4 cup canola or vegetable oil

• 3 large eggs room temperature

• 1 and 1/2 cups light brown sugar

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar

• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

• 3 cups grated carrots, lightly packed

• 2 ounces orange juice

• 1/4 cup raisins

• 1 store bought container of cream cheese cake icing

• red, yellow, & green food coloring

INSTRUCTIONS To make the carrot cake:

• Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Spray two bread pans (you can also use cake pans for a more traditional look) well with non stick cooking spray (you can also line the bottom of each pan with parchment paper for easier removal) and set aside.

• In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt until well combined. Set aside.

• In a separate large mixing bowl, whisk together the oil, eggs, brown sugar, granulated sugar, applesauce, orange juice, and vanilla extract until fully combined. Add the grated carrots and raisins into the wet ingredients and mix until well combined.

• Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix with a whisk or rubber spatula until just combined, making sure not to over mix the batter.

• Pour the cake batter evenly between both prepared bread pans. Bake at 350°F for 30-35 minutes or until the tops of the cakes are set and a toothpick inserted into the center of each one comes out clean. Remove from the oven, transfer to a wire rack, and allow to cool in the pans for about 20-25 minutes. Once the cakes have cooled, remove from the pans and return the cakes to the wire rack to finish cooling.

• While the cakes are cooling you can mix the colored icing for decorating the cakes. I only used about half of the icing container to ice the cakes so you have plenty to decorate with. In one bowl mix a small amount of icing with a couple of drops of green food coloring. In another bowl mix a small amount of icing with the red and yellow food coloring (I followed the instructions on the box of food coloring to get the correct amount of drops to get orange). Once the cakes are cool you can ice them and decorate however you like.

I hope you enjoy this as much as my family did!