Healthier Carrot Cake; super moist with honey sweetened frosting

 A delicate moist and healthier carrot cake, you’ll never miss the extra sugar, fat or the white flour!!

A lighter version of the traditional carrot cake, perfect sweetness, perfect flavor with a little molasses flavor. The healthier aspect of this cake makes it a great recipe without the guilt of eating something so sugary or fatty!

I was not raised to carrot cake and definitely not my husband either. I’ve known about carrot cakes only when we landed here in the US. Carrot cakes are America’s favorite cake specially around this time of the year, obviously there is a strong relation between Easter bunny and carrots :).

My youngest is obsessed with carrot cakes and he always asks for one on his birthday. My oldest only likes chocolate cakes and the middle one eats carrot cakes only because of the cream cheese frosting I believe. 

One of my concerns as a mom is my kids’ health. I do believe that moderation is the key, too much sweets are not good and no sweets at all is also not good. But this time of the year, we have so many celebrations in my little family and this involves cakes almost every 10 days through April.

So I bet you can see now the need for a little healthier treats through this cake spree.

This is a lovely and relatively uncomplicated recipe for carrot cake. I’ve tweaked a recipe that I’ve found on allrecipes and it turned out great. I’ve made a yogurt cream cheese frosting that paired very well with the cake.

This frosting is a little bit soft, If you need a more stiff frosting then you’ll need to add some powdered sugar. I’ve used a lot of icing as I’ve made a two tier birthday cake. You can bake in a 13×9 pan and only use half of the icing or just dust the top with some powdered sugar instead of frosting, or maybe even healthier and skip the frosting all together.

Just the right amount of almost everything so let me show you what I’ve done.

First we’ll beat eggs, sugars, vanilla, oil and applesauce.

Sift the dry ingredients well.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones.

And mix very well.

Fold in the walnuts and carrots.

Pour into prepared two 8″ pans or a 13×9 pan, bake and let it cool down.

Then make the cream cheese, yogurt and honey frosting. Fill in between the two cakes and decorate as you like or just dumb the frosting on top.

I decorated mine in a fancy way as we had a special occasion.

This cake and frosting are not too sweet like the ones we usually get at the store. For us it was just right and we did not even miss the extra sugar. I had leftover frosting which my kids out to a good use :). They scooped more on their cake pieces, but guess what? I was not freaking out and yelling at them to stop.

I hope you’ll like this recipe and please if you make this recipe, snap a pic and hashtag it #amiraspantry — I love to see your creations on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter!

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Watch this short video and tell me what you think, Enjoy!

5 from 1 vote

Print

Healthier carrot cake

Prep Time

25 mins

Cook Time

40 mins

Total Time

1 hr 5 mins

 

A healthier cake with less sugar, less oil and less processed flour.

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: 16 serving

Calories: 334.2 kcal

Author: Amira

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup brown sugar.
• 1/2 cup granulated white sugar.
• 3/4 cup apple sauce.
• 1/4 cup oil.
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract.
• 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour.
• 2 teaspoon baking soda.
• 2 teaspoon baking powder.
• 1/2 teaspoon salt.
• 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon.
• 2 cups grated carrots.
• 1/2 cup walnuts optional, chopped .

For the cream cheese frosting and filling**

• 1/2 cup raw honey.
• 2 8oz cream cheese room temperature.
• 2 5oz vanilla greek yogurt cups.

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and dust two 8 inch round cake pans or 9x13 inch pan.
2. In a deep bowl, beat eggs and vanilla then add both brown and white sugar and continue beating.
3. Add oil then applesauce and mix well.
4. In another bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
5. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix.
6. Finally fold in the carrots and pecan if using.
7. Bake in the prepared pan(s) until done.*
8. Meanwhile, prepare the frosting. In a bowl beat cream cheese, yogurt and honey until well combined. Refrigerate until the cake is done and cooled.
9. Cut the cake in two halves if you are going to fill it.
10. Add half the filling over one half and cover with the other half
11. Decorate with the rest of the frosting.
12. Refrigerate to set for a couple of hours before serving.
13. Enjoy!!

Recipe Notes

* Mine took 35 minutes in two 8Inch round pans.

** If you will not fill the cake and only will be icing it then use only half of the icing ingredients.

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