Carrot Cake with Cheescake Topping

I am not a big fan of carrot cake, but when I saw this recipe for mini carrot cake loaves with cheesecake topping baked in, I thought I'd give it a shot. I had about three weeks' worth of carrots from Abel & Cole built up in my fridge and this was one of the only recipes that used more than one or two carrots.

carrots with tops!

Their cute picture looked like this:

Ingredients
1½ c. all-purpose flour
¾ c. sugar
¼ c. brown sugar
⅓ c. oil
2 tbsp. applesauce
1 c. grated carrot
2 eggs
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
1½ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. nutmeg
1½ tsp. vanilla
¼ c. walnuts, finely chopped (optional)

Cream cheese topping:
8 oz. (1 block) original cream cheese, room temperature
¼ c. powdered sugar
1 egg
¼ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. vanilla bean paste


Directions1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray and flour an 8-well mini loaf pan or 1 standard loaf pan, set aside.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together sugars, oil, applesauce and vanilla. With mixing speed on low, beat in one egg at a time. Add the grated carrot and mix until just combined.

3. In a small mixing bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and chopped walnuts. With mixing speed on low, slowly add the dry ingredients. Mix until combined.
4. In a medium size mixing bowl (using a hand mixer or a sturdy spatula) beat together cream cheese, powdered sugar, egg, salt and vanilla bean paste until smooth and creamy. Set aside.

5. Pour the carrot cake batter into the prepared pan, then top with cream cheese mixture, making sure to spread evenly across the batter. Place in oven and bake for 30-35 minutes (or about 1 hour for a loaf). The cream cheese should be lightly browned on top, and yes, it will crack! Remove from oven and allow to cool in pan for 30 minutes (longer for a large loaf). Remove from pan and allow to cool for 15 more minutes before serving.


I did not have apple sauce, but I did have some old apples from Abel & Cole, so I made my own apple sauce using this recipe, aptly called "Sarah's apple sauce." It came out looking like this (I used a potato masher since that's what I have):

I, of course, do not have a mini loaf pan here but I do have a regular loaf pan. The recipe said that was fine, but beware that shifting from mini to reg loaf pan also means shifting from baked cheesecake topping to baked cheesecake filling, apparently. Here's what happened to mine:

The cheesecake fell inside! This was no problem for me since Joe and I were the only people eating this cake and it was totally delicious even though it was totally unattractive.

As I said, I'm not a fan of carrot cake usually, but I used about 8 or 9 carrots in this recipe and it was awesome. Next time, I may try a cupcake version if I still don't have a mini loaf pan. Yum!