Sweet Simplicity | Naked Carrot Cake

Hiya lovely reader! Happy Friday! Today I wanted to share a recipe with you for a delicious and pretty cake. Now if you saw my post from "World Baking Day", you will know that I mentioned wanting to try and bake a "naked cake", more specifically a one for my mom's belated birthday. Well, yesterday I did just that and am quite please with how it turned out. First a little background though about what a "naked cake" is because if you are unfamiliar with this term, it could sound a bit scandalous (I promise it's not). So, basically it is a layer cake that is only iced on the top and in between the cakes. They can be filled with anything and everything from fresh fruits to chocolates and candy bars. The cake I baked was a carrot cake with brown sugar cream cheese icing. The recipes are below. Enjoy!

(The recipe listed below is for 9" pans, I used two 6" pans so I just divided everything in half and it worked perfectly)

Carrot Cake Recipe: 
3 cups of grated carrots
4 eggs
2 cups of sugar
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
2 cups of flour
2 teaspoons of baking soda
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1/2 cup of chopped pecans

-Pre-heat the oven to 350º
-Pour the oil over the chopped carrots
-Add the eggs and sugar and then mix
-Add the flour (gradually), salt, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, vanilla, and the pecans
-Mix well
-Pour the batter into baking pans
-Bake for 40-45 min. (if you use smaller pans like I did, it will take less time, I set the timer initially  for 20 minutes, and then checked them in increments of 5 minutes)

(I also halved the icing recipe and still had some left over, so if you like a bit more icing and make smaller cakes, you should have enough)

Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Icing:
8 oz cream cheese
1/4 cups of margarine
4 cups of powdered sugar
2 teaspoons of milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla
Brown Sugar

Mix all these ingredients together and then add the brown sugar in increments of tablespoons until it is to your liking.


Have you baked any naked cakes? What recipes do you like? Xx