carrot cake with espresso cream cheese frosting

3.06.2014


I decided that for my dad's birthday I was going to make a family favorite: carrot cake. I had a bushel of purple carrots from my CSA and it was the perfect opportunity to put them to good use. You can't have carrot cake without cream cheese frosting, but - for this - plain cream cheese just seemed too boring. Espresso it would be! Look at me get my bake on ;).

Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Greek yogurt
1/4 Cup Butter (Softened)
3/4 Cup Brown Sugar
2 Eggs
1/5 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/2 tsp Grated Lemon Rind
2 Cups Flour
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 Tbs Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Allspice
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 1/4 Cups Packed Shredded Carrot
1/4 Cup Lemon Juice
1 Handful Raisins

Icing:
8oz Cream Cheese
3 Cups Powdered Sugar
1/3 Cup Espresso

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350F & grease a 10" round cake pan
2. Beat together butter, yogurt, and sugar in a large bowl. Add eggs one at a time and beat in.
3. Stir in lemon rind & vanilla.
4. Whisk together dry ingredients in a medium bowl. 
5. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the shredded carrot and raisins, stirring in with a wooden spoon.
6. Spread in you cake pan and bake for approx 50 minutes.
7. Let cake cool
8. Beat together icing ingredietns until you get a creamy, spreadable texture.
9. Frost your cake & decorate!

4 comments :

  1. You stop it right now. Bring me some of dat cake. nom.

    <3

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  2. Oooh I haven't made a cake with expresso flavour in a long long time, this sounds (and looks) like a brilliant idea!xx

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  3. I just tried this out. I used a 9.5" cake pan, but my cake turned out really, really thin. Also, I was confused about when to add the lemon juice and whether the espresso should be espresso grounds, or brewed liquid espresso. I garnished mine with a circle of espresso beans. Thank you!

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    Replies
    1. Kelsi, the pan I used was probably 7" in diameter. It was a small guy. You can add the lemon juice when you beat together the wet ingredients, and lastly, I used brewed espresso for the frosting, not grounds! Hope that helps. =)

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