Vanilla Orange Cream Cheese Carrot Cake

Vanilla Orange Cream Cheese Carrot Cake.
My Mom made an excellent carrot cake. I don’t remember the amount of times that I sat waiting to lick the icing spatula. This recipe makes a delicious cake and is simple to construct. If you can let the food do the talking and use fresh ground spices and the better the ingredients the better the results.
Set the oven temperature and get out all the ingredients in one area. This makes a quick recipe quicker and easy cleanup after. Now get your mixer and bowl and shortly you’ll be enjoying the rewards of good home baking.
Ingredients needed.
2 cups fresh all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup sweetened toasted coconut
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
2 cups shredded organic carrots
4 eggs
1 1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 cup buttermilk
For the frosting:
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
12 oz Philadelphia cream cheese at room temperature
3 to 4 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp real vanilla or orange extract
1-2 tbsp milk optional, depending on frosting consistency
For garnish:
1/2 cup sweetened toasted coconut
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and prepare two 9-inch round cake pans by greasing them well and lining the bottom with a circular piece of parchment paper. It’s also a good idea to grease on top of the parchment paper and flour the cake pans as well.
Add the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, nuts, coconut, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt to a large bowl and whisk them together until combined.
Add the shredded carrots to the dry ingredients and whisk them in until they’re evenly distributed throughout the dry ingredients.
To a separate bowl, add the eggs, canola oil and buttermilk and whisk them together well.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and combine them with a rubber spatula just until no streaks of flour remain.
Divide the batter evenly between the 2 prepared cake pans and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of one of the cake layers comes out clean.
Remove the cakes from their pans and cool them upside down on cooling racks until they cool completely.
For the frosting:
Add the room temperature cream cheese to the bowl and paddle whip the cream cheese on medium speed until it’s creamy and smooth.
Add the softened butter and the vanilla extract to the cream cheese and continue to whip on medium speed until they’re well combined scraping down the sides of the bowl at this point.
Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time, mixing on medium-low speed until it’s completely blended and thick. If at this point the frosting is too thick to spread, beat in a tablespoon or two of squeezed orange or lemon juice to loosen it up a little bit at a time just to be sure you don’t add too much.
Once the frosting has reached the right consistency and the cake has cooled completely, frost the cake with a knife or an offset spatula, making sure there’s a generous layer of frosting between the layers before frosting the sides and the top. Once it’s frosted, top it with the toasted coconut and chopped walnuts if you wish and let it sit in the fridge for an hour or two before slicing.
Once it’s chilled, the frosting will set enough that you’ll be able to cut into it cleanly with a warm cake knife.