I love carrot cake and this one is no exception. It’s sweeter than most as it contains both pineapple and applesauce. But it’s moist and there’s the crunch of the pecans inside (and out). Vegan cream cheese frosting topped with homemade marzipan carrots (theres a “how-to” on that below).

As with most cakes I do, this one is actually smaller than it looks. You could, of course, do this in a traditional 8″ cake pan, but here we have done three 6″ layers that are about 1″ thick. If you can find carrots with the fronds still on, you could use those on these carrots or, you could create them out of green tinted marzipan or, you could use parsley/dill (just remove it before serving). This is just for presentation.

You could also find the petite carrots and use those if you don’t want to make the marzipan. I just wanted to try something fun here 🙂

Just look at how MOIST this cake is! Chunks of crushed pineapple, crunchy walnuts….yum. I have to do my “Arizona disclaimer” here. It is unseasonably warm for mid-April so my cream cheese was not cooperating and was very soft. In hindsight, I would have made it thicker. If you live…well, anywhere but here 🙂 yours will likely be just fine! I just stuck it in the fridge to firm it up. There is lemon juice in the cream cheese frosting, so you could certainly leave that out (or use less) for a thicker frosting.

To create the marizpan carrots:

Carrots are like snowflakes…no two are exactly alike. The marizpan is very easy to work with. Let your creativity flow 🙂 And again, if you don’t want to use the marzipan, find those petite carrots in the store, steam them and just lay them on top. Alot of the time, they still have the carrot fronds attached.