Carrot Cake

Early in our marriage, my husband had to practically force me to try carrot cake.  I did not want to.  To me it just sounded gross.  I finally did try it and I really like it.  It's basically a spice cake. You can't even tell there are carrots in it.  I use the recipe in my Betty Crocker's New Cookbook.  You can find it online here. 

Here's the step by step:

Mix together sugar, oil and eggs.
(I always use applesauce in place of some of the oil. The recipe calls for one cup of oil, so I'll put in 1/2 cup of applesauce and 1/2 cup of oil. In theory you could substitute the applesauce for the oil, but I haven't tried that yet.)   I did add the sugar although it's not in the picture:)

Then sift in the dry ingredients and vanilla.  

Stir it all up and add the carrots (I use my food processor to grate them) and nuts. My daughter insisted that I not put nuts in it. So that's what I did, although I prefer it with nuts.

Stir well and place in greased pan.

Bake.

Frost.

Cream cheese frosting freezes very well. I use it for lots of things - from cakes to cookies to cinnamon rolls.  I only use about half of the frosting for this cake - I think it's plenty.  So stick the other half in a freezer bag and it'll be ready when you need it.

You can also substitute shredded zucchini.  I like to shred up lots of zucchini this time of year and stick it in the freezer.  If you use frozen zucchini, you should thaw it first and then drain about half of the liquid before using.