Orange Carrot Cake

Orange Carrot Cake
Originally uploaded by L.TON

It's the season of citrus! Oranges and the like are coming into full seasonal swing it seems like. I went to Trader's early last week and picked up a 4 lb bag of organic navel oranges. I ate half the bag in like two days. Then on Thursday afternoon, I went over to the Dominics, and there were even more organic navel oranges on sale! I couldn't resist getting another bag.

Then at Whole foods, they had bags of organic carrots on sale. Sure! why not? I like carrots, they are great to snack on.

So with a plethora of oranges and carrots, whats a girl to do with it all??? I woke up Saturday morning, and it was like waking up with the best epiphany ever- duh! Orange Carrot Cake!! I also thought I would be miss fancy pants and infuse in some fresh ginger (does anyone know where my ground ginger went? I have no idea where I put it. It must have gone missing around the time of the gingerbread peoples) into the cake, but there wasn't enough of a kapow! of the ginger for the favor to be noticeable. In this recipe, if you want the ginger zing, you can easily at .33 tsp of ground ginger in there.

The frosting is a basic cream cheese frosting. Yes, I did try infusing a super saturated simple syrup solution with ginger and orange peels. The flavor was in the sugar but did not translate into the frosting. Sad! I did though manage to jazz up the frosting with about 3 tsp of orange zest.

It was a hit with my twin cousins, Cin&Nan. They pretty much ate the whole thing in a day. I think it might fall in more of a "bread" category, quite possibly due to me over mixing and especially when being consumed cold. Not too sweet, a little bit dense, and just a slight citrus flavor, I'd say it's pretty good.

NOTE: I zested the orange, and then squeeze out the juice to be used in the cake.


Orange Carrot Cake

ingredients
1 c butter (2 sticks), softened
2 c sugar

1 tsp cinnamon
.5 tsp nutmeg
.33 tsp ground ginger (optional)
1 tblsp orange zest (about 1 orange)

4 eggs
2 c grated carrots (about 3 carrots)
1 c walnuts, chopped

3 c flour
1.75 tsp b powder
1.25 tsp b soda
.5 tsp salt

.33 c orange juice


instructions

1.preheat oven to 350F, prepare three 9" round cake pans. Line with wax paper.
2. cream together butter and sugar
3. add in the spices and orange zest and mix thoroughly.
4. mix in 1 egg at a time, mixing the egg in well each time
5. mix in the carrots and walnuts
6. in a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt
7. in three portions, add flour and OJ, alternating between flour and OJ, ending in flour. Mix well between additions.
8. divide into pans and bake for 30-45 min, until the cake tester comes out clean

Orange Zest Cream Cheese Frosting

ingredients
1 package cream cheese, @RT
2-3 c sifted powdered sugar
3 tsp orange zest
2-3 tblspn milk or yogurt

instructions
1. cream the cream cheese
2. in small portions, add in powdered sugar (I do about .25 c at a time)
3. cream together about 1.75 c powdered sugar and cheese
4. add dairy
5. add more powdered sugar until desired frosting consistency is reached
6. fold in orange zest
7. spread over orange carrot cake


yum!!!