Reese's Carrot Cake & Cream Cheese SnapDragon Frosting

Growing up, the idea of carrot cake seemed weird to me. Why would you put vegetables in a dessert!? Likewise the idea of zucchini bread, etc.

Then I HAD a good carrot cake, with a delicious cream-cheese frosting (really, what ISN'T good with cream cheese?).

Scott cooked for a Men's Retreat put on by our church last weekend, and part of his menu was our quickly-becoming-infamous Cumin Roasted Carrots. Apparently there were some miscalculations in the quantities and he came home with two 3lb bags of baby carrots and 5 1lb bags of whole large carrots.

I roasted all of the baby carrots over a couple of days, and decided to use a couple of bags of the large carrots in a carrot cake. I am not much of a baker, I can make some decent cookies and can whip up anything from a mix without screwing it up, but baking requires a lot more attention to detail than regular cooking.

I googled Carrot Cake recipes and read through a few, deciding that while I didn't have everything for any one of the recipes, I had various bits of several of them, and might be able to put something together.

I based it primarily on this recipe, although I consulted this one and this one as well. Buttermilk is not something we stock in our fridge, so I used a combination of sour cream and milk for that ingredient. I also didn't have any canola oil, so I substituted applesauce. I don't have anything against raisins in general, but I don't like them in my baked goods, so I got crazy and substituted white chocolate chips (thanks Jess!) for those.

True to my adventurous (in cooking) nature, I had to put a little hot sauce in somewhere. I chose not to put it into the cake, but I snuck a teeny tiny bit into the frosting.

Reese's Carrot Cake with SnapDragon Cream-Cheese Frosting

• 3 cups self-rising flour (I use Gold Medal brand)
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 6 eggs at room temperature
• 2 cups Splenda
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 tbs vanilla
• 2/3 cup or about 7oz mandarin oranges, drained & whizzed in mini food-processor just until broken down
• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 2lbs carrots, washed, peeled & grated in food processor
• 1 cup pecans, chopped fine
• 1 cup walnuts, chopped fine
• 1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips
• Canola oil spray

In a medium mixing bowl, combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and cloves, whisk together gently and set aside.


In a very large mixing bowl, combine eggs, Splenda, brown sugar, sour cream, milk, vanilla, oranges and applesauce. Whisk together just until combined and the big chunks of sour cream are broken up small.


Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture two cups at a time, stirring in between until all combined.


Add carrots, nuts and white chocolate chips, stirring to combine well.

Spoon batter into three round cake tins that have been sprayed with canola oil, bake on the middle rack of oven for 35-40 minutes until a toothpick poked in the center of each cake comes out clean. If your oven does not cook evenly, you may have to let one cake cook longer than another.


Remove cakes from oven and set on a cooling rack in their tins to cool for at least 30 minutes, then invert tins and continue to cool cakes upside-down on racks. You may need to run a knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the cake a little.

Once cakes are COMPLETELY cooled, you can frost them. (This was always the hardest part for me growing up, I never wanted to wait! If you try to frost before the cake has cooled, your frosting starts to melt and it is a lot harder! Granted, that is less true with cream cheese frosting, but still true!)

Cream Cheese SnapDragon Frosting

• 24oz (3 pkgs) cream cheese, softened 
• 4 oz (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 tbs vanilla extract
• 1 tsp orange extract
• 2 tsp Homeward Bound SnapDragon Hot Sauce*
• 3-4 cups confectioners’ sugar to taste

(Note: I left the cream cheese and butter in a bowl out on the counter overnight to soften - I covered it with plastic wrap and it was the PERFECT consistency the next morning)

Beat cream cheese and butter together until smooth. 


Add extracts and hot sauce and beat just until incorporated. 


Beat in sugar, one cup at a time, until frosting has the flavor and consistency you want. You may not need to add all of the sugar.


*(The hot sauce in the frosting is something you only notice a little bit after you've eaten it. It just warms up the back and sides of your tongue enough to make you say "hey, what's in that?")

I don't own a cake plate, and the only lazy susan I have is two-tiered and holds our vitamins in a corner of the kitchen countertop.

I cleared the stuff off the top of the lazy susan, covered a large sturdy plastic lid (to a large mixing bowl) with tin foil and placed it on the top tier of the lazy susan. It was a perfect size.

I REALLY recommend using a lazy susan to frost your cake - being able to turn it with one hand and apply frosting with the other is made MUCH easier.

This is the first cake that I have made from scratch EVER, and I'm amazed at how it came out. The consistency is dense and a little chewy, which "traditional" carrot cake is supposed to be. I'm very happy with all of the flavors in the cake AND the frosting. I am obviously not too talented at the decorating part, I know it's a little lopsided and the frosting is uneven, I also didn't have any food coloring to create carrot shapes on top, so I wrote "I AM CARROT CAKE" on top instead. (Jess said when she saw it she heard "HEAR ME ROAR" after...

Extra thanks to Jess for loaning me her cake pans and suggesting the white chocolate chips!