Reduced Fat Carrot Cake

for the cake:
2 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsps ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 4-oz jar carrot baby food
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 pound carrots, peeled and shredded

for the frosting
1 8-oz package of Neufchatel cream cheese, softened
1 cup Fluff
1 1/2 tsps vanilla
1/4 cup confectioners sugar

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a 13x9 pan and line the bottom with parchment. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl mix the eggs, baby food and sugar until smooth and creamy. Slowly add the oil to the egg mixture, while still mixing. Mix until thoroughly incorporated. Add the flour mixture in two additions, mixing until nearly smooth. Fold in the carrots. Spread the batter in the prepped pan and bake until a toothpick comes out almost clean, about 25-30 minutes. Cool completely before frosting. For the frosting, beat together the cream cheese, Fluff and vanilla. Add the sugar and mix till smooth.

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I'm back! And I brought some cake. When I asked my girlfriend what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday I was expecting her to say something like "super chocolate fudge", "strawberry butter cake" or something. But she said "reduced fat carrot cake". I said "er, what?" But she insisted. She had found this recipe in one of my Cook's Illustrated magazines and really wanted it. So I made it. It's actually really good, you would never guess that it was reduced fat. According to CI, it has a third of the fat of regular carrot cake and about half the calories. Not too shabby. Plus the frosting (the most important part) is wicked good. I was a bit worried, since it had Fluff in it. Fluff kind of weirds me out. The cakes texture isn't perfect, but I think if you served it to someone and didn't tell them it was a light version they would never know.

Ok, first the dry ingredients. Flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. In a bowl. Whisked together. Now, the wet ingredients and the sugar. Eggs, brown sugar and baby food. Yeah, baby food. Apparently a lot of low fat carrot cake recipes call for things like prune puree. I don't know why you would use that when carrot puree is available and matches the flavor you are going for, but who can tell why people do anything. Make sure to get baby food that has just carrots and water as its ingredients. You don't want any of the other stuff they might put in there. Anyway, mix the wet stuff together. Add half the dry stuff, mix it together, then the rest of the dry stuff and mix it most of the way. Now it's carrot time. These are just bagged pre-shredded ones, but next time I think I will do it myself. They were a little thick, not that you notice it in the finished product. Fold those in. Next, spread it out in the prepped pan. I don't have a 9x13 pan, only a 8x11. So I used most of the batter in the pan and then made a little cake in a ramikin. Baked at 350 till they're done. While they were cooking I made the frosting. I'd never had Neufchatel before, it's pretty good. First you take the cheese, vanilla and Fluff and mix them together. Ok, I'm not really a big Fluff fan. I was deeply concerned about putting it in one of my favorite frostings. But you don't notice it and according to CI it adds something good. So there you go. Anyway, mix it all together, then add the powdered sugar. Mix it together and that's that. Feel free to ignore the finger marks in it. Hey, I had to check it! What if it was no good? Let's move along, ok? Pull out the cake, let it cool and frost it. I frosted up the little one for my girlie. So there it is, reduced fat carrot cake. Good times kids, I highly recommend it.