Carrot & Apple Snack Cake

My family’s original recipe for carrot cake called for carrot baby food. When I moved overseas I could not find carrot baby food so I started making the cake by cooking carrots or using canned carrots and pureeing them myself. I started playing around with the recipe. Using a mixture of carrots and apples, halving the recipe, lowing the amount of sugar, and using part brown sugar. Until eventually it evolved into this recipe. It’s a nice snacking cake, great with tea or coffee. If you really wanted to, it could be served as a dessert with a dollop of whipped cream.

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup light tasting oil (see notes)
• 4 oz carrot baby food (see notes)
• 4 oz applesauce (see notes)
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup granulated white sugar
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• Powdered sugar for dusting

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 f and grease the bottom of an 8-inch square baking pan (oil, butter, spray).
2. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a medium-size mixing bowl.
3. In a large measuring jug, whisk together the oil, carrots, apples, vanilla, eggs, and sugars until smooth.
4. Whisk the wet mixture into the dry, just until the dry mixture is moistened. Do not beat or overmix.
5. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out with just a few moist crumbs when inserted into the middle of the cake.
6. Cool in the pan on a cooling rack for 5 minutes, then turn out onto the cooling rack and cool completely. If the sides of the cake are stuck, run a knife around the edges before you turn it out.
7. Place cake back into the clean (wash it first) baking pan, and dust lightly with powdered sugar. Cut into 9 squares (or however many you want).
8. Serve immediately, or store cake tightly covered at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Notes

• I use light olive oil or avocado oil.
• I use 1 tub of Gerber 2nd Foods Carrot Baby Food, 4 oz serving. It comes in a pack of 2.
• I use Mott’s Unsweetened Applesauce single serving which is actually just 3.9 ounces and comes in a pack of 6.
• Simply scraping the cake remnants from the pan isn’t clean enough to store the cake back in the original baking pan. The cake might develop mold if you don’t wash the pan.
• You could make a simple glaze by whisking together powdered sugar (1 1/4 cup), water (2 to 3 tablespoons), and vanilla extract (1/2 teaspoon) until smooth and drizzling it over the cake.