Carrot Cake III

The past few weeks Scott has been having to work nights (luckily not anymore), so finally Thursday night I was bored out of my mind and decided to attempt not only my first layer cake, frosted cake, but also my first cake from scratch. And we think it turned out well! Scott really liked it aside from all the pecans, so he will compliment it - it must be good!

Keep in mind that this was my first ever layer cake so I made some simple mistakes like frosting too soon and um...not having a cake stand! So I just had to make due with a regular plate. But it tasted good so that's all that really mattered. ; ) Also, my spring-form pan was an inch smaller than recommended so I made some cupcakes with the extra batter (sp?).  

I got the recipe off of allrecipes.com and followed all the adjustments from the first review. Any additional adjustments I think I'll make later will be under Notes.

Notes:

• I used 2 8x8 cake pans (all the store had) and then made 4 cupcakes from the leftover batter. 
• Next time, I'll use less pecans, if any, in the batter for Scott, and probably won't add the pineapple either, simply because of texture.

Yield: 1 9x13 cake, 1 2-layer 8x8 or 9x9 inch cake

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3 cups grated carrots (~ 1 lb.)
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1 8-oz. can of crushed pineapple, juice squeezed out
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• Cream Cheese Frosting recipe below.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour either a 9x13 or 2 9x9 cake pans.

In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, applesauce, both sugars, pineapple, and 3 t of vanilla extract. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Stir in carrots. Fold in pecans. Pour into prepared pan(s).

Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cook in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

Frosting:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 3 1/2 c confectioner's sugar (poster measurements vary from 3-4 cups)
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 1 c chopped pecans

Directions:

In a medium bowl, combine first 4 ingredients. Beat until smooth and creamy. Stir in chopped pecans (I reserved all for garnish.) Frost the cooled cake.