Fast, easy AND delicious!

We are BIG fans of carrot cake here at the Carter house.

In fact, when Craig I got married, our wedding cake was a carrot cake. :)

I have tried  several recipes over the years,

but have never found one that we have loved enough to make again and again.

Now that 3/4 of our children are no longer residing here and with Craig being gone most of

every week to track meets, I haven't been baking a whole lot.

No sense baking when I would be the one eating the majority of the baked goods.

And if you've ever caught a glimpse of my girth,

you'll understand why I should avoid anything that could potentially add to it.

But, I found a recipe from good 'ol Martha Stewart that is fast, easy and delicious!

I would love to pass on the recipe to you!

:):):)

Spiced Carrot Cake

1/4 c vegetable oil    (I used butter) 

1 c all purpose flour (I used 1/2 c. wheat and 1/2 c. white flour)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I used pumpkin pie spice)

2 lg. eggs

1/2 c granulated sugar

1/3 c packed light brown sugar

1/3 c low-fat plain yogurt (I used an orange flavor because I didn't have plain and it was yummy!)

1 c finely chopped carrots

Preheat oven to 350*. Grease and flour an 8-inch baking dish.

In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk eggs, sugars, yogurt, and oil until smooth. Gently mix egg mixture into dry ingredients until moistened. Mix in carrots. Transfer batter to prepared pan. Bake 35-40 min. or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 15 min. and turn out of pan. Cool completely right side up.

Apply glaze or confectioners sugar on top.

(Glaze- 1/2 c. confectioners sugar with enough liquid (water, milk, apple juice) to make an appropriate texture to drip over cake top. I made mine extra thin.)

This cake is healthier than most! It's light and fluffy and very tasty. If you like nuts, I think they could be easily added as well.

I usually always have shredded carrots in the freezer to use for recipes like this. When we have an over abundance of things like carrots, zucchini, peppers, onions or celery, I chop them in the food processor and freeze them in freezer bags in 1/2c. to 1c. portions. They can be thawed and put in recipes like this, or I even add them to soups and sauces.

                           I also wanted to share this fun little preschool activity that we did today.

We have been learning about our community helpers this week and today we talked about firefighters.

This was provided by a really great preschool mom. :)

The truck is a piece of bread with a square cut out of the top. It's covered with strawberry jam.

The window is a Cheezit. The ladder is made of pretzels.

The wheels are Oreo cookies with the creme filling removed. The light on top is a cherry. 

The kids had a blast making them AND eating them!

Enjoy your day!