It was only three years ago when I first started cooking. I started with simple vegetable dishes, and moved to desserts as I gained some confidence. And the very first cake I made was from a carrot cake recipe I found in AllRecipes. However, my first carrot cake was very sweet, greasy and topped with an ugly cream cheese frosting  that I couldn’t make properly.

Gradually, I modified that carrot cake recipe (actually changed it totally), substituted some ingredients, decreased the amount of sugar and oil, and came up with a unique carrot cake recipe. It soon became the favorite dessert in the family because of its spongy texture and different taste.

This is my first post in this blog, so it would be a shame not to begin with my “famous” carrot cake. Enjoy!

Carrot Cake

makes 25 pieces

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1 1/4 cups (use 1 ½ cups if you like it sweeter) brown sugar
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 3 cups carrots, grated coarsely (look at the picture below)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• a pinch of ground nutmeg
• a pinch of salt
• 4 teaspoons baking soda

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

In a bowl, beat together eggs, oil and sugar.

Stir in vanilla, flour, and spices, and mix well. Finally, add the baking soda into the mixture and stir.

At this stage, don’t worry if the mixture is not so liquid. It should be something between cookie dough and cake batter.

Add the carrots and form an even mixture. Don’t worry again that the carrots are too much. They will dissolve after cooked.

Pour the mixture into a greased pan (you can also pour the mixture into muffin cups) and bake for 30 minutes, or until cooked.

Note: Instead of 3 cups of carrots, you can add 2 cups of carrots and 1 cup of blueberries, and you get a fantastic variation!