Here’s a yummy carrot cake recipe from our good friend and all around crafting champ Lesley Graham. Enjoy!

This cake takes the goodness of carrots (and cream cheese!) and will surely be a crowd pleaser. I thought this would be a fun cake for fall parties or maybe a woodland theme… The cake is decorated with carrot stems and a few acorns from the backyard.

Ingredients
(adapted from this recipe)

For the cake:

• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups organic sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3 cups grated carrots

For the frosting:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Making The Cake

• Heat oven to 350 F and grease two 8-inch cake pans.
• In a large mixing bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla extract. Mix in the dry ingredients and then stir in the carrots. Pour into the greased cake pans.
• Bake for 40 minutes, or until a fork inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
• Leave the cakes in the pan for 10 minutes, and then turn them out onto a wire rack to cool completely.  Note: To make this small “smash cake” size, I stacked the cakes on top of one another and then removed roughly 2-inches from around the cake.
• For the frosting: In a medium mixing bowl, combine the butter, cream cheese, confectioners’ sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Beat until the mixture is creamy and smooth. Apply the frosting to the cake once it has time to cool.

I chose to top the cake with gluten-free granola and a dusting of cinnamon. The cake is so moist and yummy, while the icing is only mildly sweet (I cut the sugar in half). Enjoy!