Carrot cake pops

These were baked as a request from one of my best friends, she said that she had never seen anyone make carrot cake pops. So I made it with my god sister, it was really fun to make. I think if anyone has a party or kids, they will love this cause kids get to wreck the cake and its a bite size piece of cake that you don’t have to feel super guilty about.

butter up and flour the baking pan.




mixing the cake to crumbly blob

Carrot cake pops
I used a recipe from my previous post Carrot cake.
The great things about this recipe is it can be easily adapted to any type of cake.
The icing will have to be doubled in amount, although the powdered sugar could be cut down since you will have to use more of it in this recipe.
Once you have the ingredients for the carrot cake then all you need is the lollipop/cake pop sticks. I would suggest to cut the sticks in half.

Cake pop assembly
After you have baked the cake and let it cool. Then use a fork to mix the cake till its all crumbled.
Add the first portion of icing to the crumbled cake, this is done to help the cake adhere to each other.
Mix the icing and cake together, it will look crumbled blobs.
Use your hands to shape the cake into a ball, roughly the size of a ping pong ball and place them on a cookie sheet or container.
Place sticks in the middle of cake balls and then put them into the freezer for 15 mins or refrigerator for 30 mins for the cake to firm up and form.
Make the icing while you wait for the cake pops to harden. You want the icing to be more liquidy than the previous icing made, therefore adding less powdered sugar or heating the icing up before usage would allow that to happen.
Take out the cake pops from the fridge and dip them in the icing then place them back on the cookie sheet. Once done with icing put them back into the fridge to harden the icing.
Voila, you have cake pops!

Carrot cake

This cake was another birthday cake for my dad since they were celebrating it with family friends. Therefore, I made carrot cake. How I love this cake, I mean how can you not love carrot cake, It has cinnamon, raisins, carrots, nuts and best of all cream cheese! I LOVE CHEESE!!! (even though I am not suppose to, darn lactose intolerance).

Build up your arm muscles by grating that carrot. To the left of the picture there is a plastic glove, I use that so the orange color from the carrot doesn’t come off on my hands but I took them off for this picture.

Substituting apple sauce for half the oil, with the mixture of sugar and eggs.

Added the carrot into the sugar, egg & oil mixture.

Added the flour and combined it into the mixture then added the raisins and nuts.

Into the oven we go! drop the cake pan one or two times to even the batter out and get the bubbles out.

Carrot cake
Adapted from Williams-Sonoma
I tweaked this cake in a healthy way by substituting half the oil for apple sauce (you can also use yogurt). Thanks education for teaching me that. This was the first time I had used apple sauce in a cake and it was not bad, not bad at all. The difference between the regular cake and apple sauce cake is that the cake was quite moist, this might put off some people but in the end it still tastes great! It must be all that cream cheese, yum!
As for the carrots, the recipe says four but I think it depends on how large the carrots are. I have used two very large carrots before. If you happen to have more carrots you can put in about 1/2 a cup more into the cake or put it in a salads or tuna fish.
Don’t have mace then use a touch of all spice or nutmeg. Also, if you don’t have cake flour, its okay I did not have cake flour for a long time, you can use 1 3/4 cup of all purpose flour and 1/4 cup of corn starch.

4 large carrots

2 cups cake flour

2 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp. ground mace

1 1/2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 1/4 cups canola oil(with apple sauce, 1/2 cup & 2 tablespoon each)

1/2 cup raisins

1 1/2 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped

Cream cheese frosting
Adapted from Alton Brown

8 oz cream cheese, soft

2 oz unsalted butter (4 tablespoons), room temperature

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

Preheat an oven to 350°F. Butter and flour two round cake pans or 9-by-13-by-2-inch baking pan.

To make the cake, peel and grate the carrots. You should have about 3 cups, set aside.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and mace, set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the sugar, eggs,  and oil and whisk thoroughly to combine. Stir in the carrots. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the flour mixture until almost completely incorporated. Add the raisins and 1 cups of nuts and fold to mix thoroughly. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake the cake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Watch the time closely at the end so the cake does not overbake. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool for 15 minutes. Place a cake rack on top of the pan, invert them together and lift off the pan. Let the cake cool completely.

Cream cheese frosting
Use an electric mixer to combine the cream cheese and butter on medium speed until blended then add the vanilla. On a low speed add the powdered sugar in 3 batches and mix it till smooth for each addition.

Time to assemble the cake. Place a layer of cake on a cake stand or a large plate and frost each layer. Use the rest of the crushed nuts to decorate around the side of the cake. Serve and enjoy!