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- Hey everybody it's Natasha of natashaskitchen.com.
We're super excited to share with you
this delicious carrot cake recipe.
It's got tons of carrots, it's soft, moist,
delicious, you guys are gonna love it.
So let's go over the really simple ingredients.
We start with a cup of sugar and then four eggs,
four large eggs, then we have a cup of
extra light olive oil, you can also use a vegetable oil,
then we have 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder,
one teaspoon of baking soda,
two cups of all purpose flour,
a whopping three cups of shredded carrots,
then I toasted a cup and a half of walnuts on a dry skillet,
and you can or don't have to add walnuts
if you don't want to, then for the frosting we've got
one stick of unsalted butter, two cups of powdered sugar,
and 16 ounces of cream cheese or two packages.
So let's get started.
First we're gonna preheat the oven to 350 degrees
and we're gonna grease the sides and bottom of
two round nine inch cake pans
and we're gonna line the bottom with a parchment paper.
Start by combining your eggs and sugar in a stand mixer.
We're gonna beat this together on high speed
for about three to five minutes
or until it's nice and thick and fluffy.
Okay, in goes the sugar,
and we're off.
Okay, it's been three minutes,
I think that's looking pretty good.
I'm gonna put my mixer down to medium-low speed
and add my one cup of oil
and let that mix for another minute
just to get it well incorporated.
Now we're gonna combine our dry ingredients.
So we've got our two cups of flour
and we're gonna sift in the baking soda.
I like to sift it in because some times it gets clumps
and that's the last thing that you want in your cake.
So there we go, see there's tiny little clumps.
I'm just gonna sift those all the way in
and then add our baking powder,
and just whisk those together
just until it's well incorporated.
Now we're gonna add this mixture
into the egg mixture in fourths.
So we'll get the mixer back on at the low speed
and just start adding it in.
It helps to scrape down the bowl a time or two
just to get that flour well incorporated into the batter.
As soon as the flour is incorporated
you're gonna fold in the carrots with the spatula.
I love how much carrots go into this.
It just makes it a little bit less guilty.
Okay, now the batter is ready to divide.
So we're gonna divide it evenly between the two
prepared cake pans and
I'm really particular about making sure they're perfect,
because I want to cut them in half later
and make this a four layer cake.
So I usually weigh them on a kitchen scale
to make sure that they're perfectly even.
So now we're gonna bake these for 30 to 35 minutes
or until a tooth pick comes out clean.
You want to coarsely chop your toasted walnuts.
Half of these are gonna go inside the cake
and the other half is gonna go on top for decoration.
These baked up perfectly.
Just let those cool on wire rack
until they're at room temperature before cutting them
once the cake layers are pretty much at room temperature
you can get started on the frosting.
So we're gonna combine our powdered sugar and our butter.
Woo, I got a cloud of powdered sugar there.
Okay, and the butter is softened butter.
It has to be softened for this to work.
Okay, so whisk attachment
and we're gonna put that on about a minute,
just until it's creamed together.
Now with the mixer on medium speed
you're gonna add the cream cheese one piece at a time.
Now we're gonna kick up the mixer to high speed
and let it blend until it's completely
smooth without any lumps.
It takes about five minutes.
While the frosting is blending it's a great time
to slice your cake layers.
So loosen em around the edges
and then they should come right out.
Okay, and I peel back that parchment paper.
Lovely, okay, and then you're gonna take a serrated knife,
I like this long one
just because it goes through the cake easily.
So first deeply score the sides of the cake
all the way around.
Now slice all the way through.
Okay, and you can see that cake is so moist and soft inside.
Perfect, so we're gonna keep those layers together
until you're ready to frost it,
because you don't want your cake to dry out.
You'll want to scrape the bowl down once or twice
just to make sure there's no stray cream cheese on the sides
and that looks absolutely perfect.
So we're gonna get started on assembling this
delicious carrot cake.
So start with your first layer,
put that on a cake platter,
and then you're gonna add
a nice layer of cream cheese.
Okay, here we go, ooh look at that, I want to eat it.
(laughs)
Okay, now we're gonna sprinkle some nuts over the top.
Okay, and then the second layer goes on
and repeat that with the rest of the layers.
Okay, we're putting on our last layer
and then we're gonna frost the top and sides.
Now for the last layer I always like to put a bottom side,
because it's nice and flat.
It's got that perfect surface for frosting.
Okay, and we're gonna frost the sides all the way around.
Okay, and don't even panic if you get a little bit of
crumbs on the sides, it really doesn't matter.
It just makes it look a little more rustic,
which my husband says is code for sloppy, but
we know better (laughs)
and also you're putting nuts on the side
so that's how we're gonna decorate it.
We're gonna put nuts on the boarder of the cake.
It's such a simple decoration, but it looks pretty.
Okay, and before it get too excited here
you do want to clean off the plate, the cake plate,
because otherwise you get a mess of
frosting covered nuts on the bottom.
So just wipe it off with a paper towel.
It's nice and neat.
Okay, now we're gonna just
pack the nuts onto the side of the cake.
There really is no easy way to do this that I've found.
So if you have an awesome secret
for how to get nuts on the side of the cake
let me know, but I'm just doing this with my hand.
Okay, our rustic carrot cake.
So you can eat it right away,
I like to stick it in the fridge,
because once the frosting firms up a little bit
it's much easier to slice.
So this is gonna go in fridge for half an hour
just because I don't want to wait any longer than that
and we'll come back for the taste test.
Wow, wow, wow, wow it's amazing.
Perfectly moist and not overly sweet
like a lot of carrot cakes are.
This is fantastic, you guys are gonna love this.
You have to make it, like today, today.
(laughs)
I've got links below, to print the recipe
visit natashaskitchen.com and
thank you so much for subscribing to my YouTube channel.
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