Carrot Cake with Maple Buttercream

Ingredients

Cake

  • 1 cup grated carrots
  • ½ cup coarsely chopped walnuts
  • 2/3 cup brown sugar                        
  • ½ cup vegetable oil or melted unsalted butter
  • 2 large eggs
  • ¼ cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • 1¼ cups all-purpose flour 
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp baking soda
  • pinch of salt
  • ½ tsp of pumpkin pie spice
  • ½ tsp of gingerbread spice
  • ¾ cup naturSource Crunchy Coconut Mix
  • Cinnamon sticks for decoration

Buttercream

  •  ¾ cup cream cheese 
  • 1/3 cup butter, softened 
  • 1 cup icing sugar 
  • ¼ cup maple syrup

Directions

  1. Heat the oven to 350°F 
  2. Grease a 9-inch round cake pan and line with parchment paper
  3. In a medium bowl, whisk all of the dry ingredients until combined
  4. In a big bowl, combine the wet ingredients (whisk in eggs one at a time, until smooth)
  5. Using a spatula, scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl then add the dry ingredients in a few batches, gently stirring until the batter is smooth. Stir in the grated carrots and walnuts
  6. Transfer the batter to the prepared cake pan. Bake until toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean (35 to 45 minutes)
  7. Cool the cake in pan for 10 minutes then turn out onto cooling rack, peel off parchment paper. Make sure that cake is completely cool before frosting and decorating

 Make the buttercream:

  1. 1. Using handheld mixer beat the cream cheese and butter together in a large bowl, add sugar and maple syrup and beat until smooth
  2. 2. Frost the top of carrot cake, swirl it with the spoon. Decorate with cinnamon sticks and Crunchy Coconut Mix