Organic Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I made this for Wendy's Birthday last weekend. Recipe is from Bon Appetit online. The recipe called for using everything organic. I used organic carrots, flour, and sugar but didn't go to the extreme to find things like organic cream cheese. I think I would recommend adding a little more coconut if you like it to give it more texture as well as some golden raisens if you are in to those. I added toasted walnuts, but probably would have added more than the 3/4 cup the recipe calls for if I did it again. This is also one of those recipes you could use applesauce instead of some of the oil to make it healthier due to the density of the cake.

Ingredients:
1/3 c shredded unsweetened coconut
1 lb organic carrots
1 c chopped pineapple
1 1/2 c organic all purpose flour
1/2 c organic whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 c organic cane sugar
2 t baking soda
2 1/4 t cinnamon
1 t salt
1/2 c dark brown sugar
3/4 c canola oil
1 T vanilla extract
3 eggs
frosting recipe (below)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Spray 2 eight inch round cake pans with nonstick spray and line the bottom with parchment paper.

Place the coconut in a cup of warm water to soften it for 15 minutes.

Put carrots in the food processor and process for 1 minute. Add the pineapple and puree, 1-2 minutes until smooth.

In a large bowl, sift together dry ingredients. Add brown sugar and whisk to break up pieces.

Drain the coconut and place it in a medium bowl. Add the oil, vanilla, eggs, and carrot-pineapple puree, whisk to combine.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry, mixing with a spatula to incorporate, but not overmix. When the batter is almost mixed, add chopped walnuts if desired. Pour batter into prepared pans.

The recipe called to bake for 55 minutes, however, I checked mine after 30 minutes and it was done. Let the cakes cool in the pan for 15 minutes, invert onto a rack and cool completely before frosting.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:
3 8 oz packages reduced fat or nonfat cream cheese (I used 2 nonfat and 1 light)
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 t grated lemon zest
1 1/2 T lemon juice
1 T vanilla extract
2 3/4 c powdered sugar

Directions:
In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the cream cheese and butter on med high speed until combined and airy, about 2 minutes. Mix in the lemon juice, zest, and vanilla.

Sift the powdered sugar. Turn mixer to low speed and slowly pour into frosting mixture.

Fill the inside of cake and frost the outter layer. I 'decorated' the cake by mixing the remaining frosting with yellow food coloring (and then later with green) and putting into frosting bags. I recommend putting the frosting in the fridge for a bit if you want to use it to decorate the cake in order to make it a little stiffer. As a side note, I think the recipe made a little too much frosting unless you wanted to really mound it up on the cake. I also used this frosting on red velvet cupcakes this week and it is a nice airy and not too sweet frosting to compliment many types of dessert.