Delicious Carrot Cake Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting

This weekend I made these bars for a party, and everyone loved them, they're super tasty, and have the perfect texture. When making theses I used the carrot cake recipe from The Joy of Cooking book, but I made a few alterations to this recipe. For this yummy bar I skipped the vegetable oil, and cut some of the sugar and added some applesauce instead. Overall this worked really well and the resulting cake was the perfect texture as well as delicious.
To go with this yummy cake I made Carmel cream cheese frosting. I find some easy ways to make this frosting a little bit healthier, is to use the Philadelphia 1/3 fat cream cheese. Also I find you can usually use about 1/2-1 cup less powders sugar than most recipes call for and it will still be super delicious. Overall this recipe has some healthier options than most carrot cakes while still being super delicious. Compared to most cakes it does have some of the added benefits of the carrots high amounts of Vitamin A, antioxidants, and fiber. Hope you enjoy these yummy bars!!!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cloves
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup applesauce (I use the organic unsweetened applesauce) 
• 3 Eggs
• 1 1/2 cups carrots finely grated

Frosting:

• 5 tbsp butter (room temperature)
• 8 oz 1/3 reduced fat  cream cheese (cold)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1-1 1/3 cup powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup melted Carmel

Directions:

1. Heat the oven to 350°F
2. In a large bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, and salt.
3. Add the applesauce and eggs to the flour mixture then beat on low till mixed together.
4. Stir in the carrots into the flour mixture
5. Pour the  mixture into a 13*9 in pan then place in the oven for 30min or until a toothpick can be inserted into the center and come out clean.
6. For the frosting  you begin by beating together the butter, vanilla, and cream cheese together on low.
7.  When mixed slowly add in the powdered sugar to the creamed mixture(I recommend tasting it once you've put in 1 cup to see if its sweet enough, and if it needs more sugar you can go from their). 
8. (Optional) For my frosting I used the Werther's original Carmel pieces.  I took about 6-10 of the Carmel pieces then added 2 tbsp of almond milk (add more if the Carmel hardens to fast).  From their you place it in the microwave for about 2 minutes or until its melted,then stirred the melted Carmel into the cream cheese frosting.
9. Frost the bars with the frosting, serve and enjoy!!

-Megan

0

Homemade Apple Oatmeal-cookies

Hey guys it's Megan and for our first  blog I trialed these apple pie oatmeal cookies from http://amyshealthybaking.com/blog/2015/01/03/apple-pie-oatmeal-cookies/.  In baking these I made some alterations that I'm here to share.  The fist thing I changed was using unsalted-butter instead of coconut oil.  Before making these cookies I did some research on the comparisons between the two.  Overall I found nothing considerably better about the coconut oil as it was higher in calories and fats, but it is personal opinion and you are welcome to use coconut oil if you like.  Another thing I decided to read on was the use of agave.  Before this I had no idea what agave was, but I have found out it is a sweetener that comes from a plant usually found in Southern U.S. and South America.  Upon my research  I found that during the process into agave nectar  the syrup losses many of its benefits making this healthy option not so healthy.  For this recipe I then decided to substitute  the agave with 3/4 cup of honey and 1/4 cup of water for the 1 cup of agave.  By doing this it would help to keep the more liquid texture of the original syrup.  With these few substitutions I went to work to try this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of Instant oats (I used the McCann's imported quick cooking rolled oats)
• 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 3 tsp of ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 4 tbsp melted unsalted butter 
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 honey with 1/4 cup water
• 3 small apple finely diced 

Directions:

1. Then whisk  together the oats, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt together in a medium bowl
2. In another bowl mix together the butter, eggs, and vanilla.  After that is mixed together, stir in the honey and water.  
3. Add the flour mixture to liquid mixture and stir it together.
4.  Take your apples and stir into you combined mixture.
5. Chill the batter for 30min( I forgot to do this step so this may have effected the outcome)
6. Heat the Oven to 325°F, then put the batter onto lined baking sheets.  I used a spoon to put them onto the sheet, and this made good sized cookies. After the oven is ready and your sheets are prepared put the cookies in for 13-15minutes.
7. Take out the cookies when done, let cool and enjoy!

Evaluation: This recipe made about 34 cookies, overall I thought these cookies were really fun and taste pretty good. Although I did forget to chill my batter for 30minutes,  they still turned out fine and I thought the butter and honey worked well. 

-Megan

0