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