The Best Carrot Cake Ever, According to Two California Hippies

This cake was another baking project taken on by myself and Gwen (after that questionable butter debacle which mysteriously made the apple pie turn out delicious, we figured "nothing could possibly go wrong with the ingredients that go into carrot cake!"). The recipe itself was taken directly from allrecipes.com with the additional "healthy" modifications thrown in for good measure (mainly because Gwen had this jar of prison-grade applesauce that had somehow managed to make its way into her bag after a harrowing mix-up with a particularly senile couple attempting to navigate the self-checkout line at Star Market).

Ingredients:

4 eggs

3/4 cup oil

1/2 cup applesauce

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

3 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups flour + a dash for flouring the pan(s)

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder (yeah, I know... it's 2 different leavening agents, but just work with me here. It does come out better if you do it this way)

1/2 tsp NaCl

3 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 cup raisins

3 cups shredded carrots (which, as it turns out, you can totally get out of a 1 lb bag of carrots without nearly as many leftovers as if you are a fool like me and are convinced you need a 3 lb bag. Be sure that when you shred, you cram the carrots through the coarsest panel on the cheese grater - trying to do them any smaller will result in a pile of carrot mush and the releasing of juices, and not in the good kind of way either)

A tiny itty bit of butter for lubing up the pan(s), or spray-lube in a can

Tools:

1 big ass bowl

1 rubber spatula

Before you begin slinging ingredients together, preheat the oven to 375, because you'll forget later on once you get elbow-deep in brown chunky batter. Lube up the pans with the butter/Pam and flour them lightly, then set aside. In the big-ass bowl, beat the eggs, oil, brown and white sugars, and vanilla until you have a nice homogeneous liquid mixture. Slop in the applesauce and combine gently with the rest of the mixture. Slowly add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt (didja catch that in the ingredients list? You would have if you'd paid attention in chemistry class instead of fooling around with the Bunsen burners like you probably did). Mix thoroughly until you have an aromatic brown paste, into which you should fold the shredded carrots and the raisins to create a lumpy brown concoction. Slap it all into the lubed and floured pan, and shove it in the oven for 45 minutes. Meanwhile... prepare the heart-attack frosting:

Ingredients:

3 cups powdered sugar (which should make it plenty sweet. Use slightly less if you are inclined to avoid developing diabetes)

1 stick of butter (softened - either leave it out ahead of time, or take it right out of the fridge and stick it in your pants for 5 minutes or so)

1 8 oz. package cream cheese (also softened, see above)

1 tsp vanilla extract

The heart-attack frosting is made by cramming all the ingredients into a bowl and mashing and mixing it with a fork until it's all whipped together. You'll really need to put some muscle into it if you're doing it by hand, but trust me, the imminent heart-attack is absolutely worth it. Slather frosting onto cakes once they are completely cooled.