Low Fat Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

Carrot cake is by far my favorite dessert (besides birthday cake of course), and that says a lot because I have a huge sweet tooth. At one of our hanukkah celebrations a few weeks ago someone had made a carrot cake.  A real full-fat carrot cake, cream cheese icing and all.  

Because I never keep dessert in my house or order dessert on the rare occasion I go out to eat, and nobody has ever made one at any family gathering before, I hadn't had my favorite cake in years.  At 650-1250 calories per slice, I can't justify it.  I can actually remember the last time I had a piece.  It was the night I found out I was pregnant three years ago (that night I could definitely justify it - my husband asked what I wanted to do to celebrate and I said "eat carrot cake"). 

So I had a slice of the carrot cake at the hanukkah party and it was so good I realized I had to come up with a lighter version so that I could eat it more often than once every few years.  When I was trying to decide what to make for my dads birthday last week, I thought it would be the perfect time to come up with a lower calorie recipe for carrot cake.  And that I did.  And it was delicious.  I wish I would have come up with it a long time ago.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 1/2 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

2 cups grated carrots

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup canned crushed pineapple, drained 

2 eggs

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/4 cup coconut oil

1 cup Splenda 

1 tsp. vanilla

Cream Cheese Icing

1 cup light cream cheese (I used Philadelphia)

1 cup icing sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

Garnish (optional)

Chopped pecans

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a cake pan with cooking spray.

2. Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg.

3. In separate bowl mix together Splenda, vanilla, eggs, coconut oil, applesauce, pineapple and carrots.

4. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and pour into cake pan.  Bake for 45 minutes.

5. While cake is cooking, use an electric mixer to blend cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla until smooth.

6. When cake is done, remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes before removing from cake pan.  Once the cake is out of the cake pan, let cool for 30 minutes before icing.

Nutritional Information:
Servings: 12
Calories 175, total fat 3.5g (sat. fat 1.8g), total carbs 32, fibre 2.2g, sugar 17g, protein 4.5g