Pretty In Pink Carrot Cake

The first of June marked my friend Melissa's Birthday. Feeling like doing something special, I asked her if she would like me to bake her anything, and out of the list of favorite baked treats she gave me, I decided on Carrot Cake. Personally, I'm not a fan of this particular flavor - vegetables belong on a dinner plate, not a dessert plate - but for a friend I've known since kindergarten, I was more than willing to fulfill her request. Not only that, but I decided to make her birthday treat extra special with some pink cream cheese frosting!

I doubt there was actually carrot cake referenced or featured in the John Hughes movie Pretty In Pink, but let's be honest, I'll take any excuse to reference John Hughes - not to mention Duckie!

Anyway, let's get to the baking fun! I found the recipe for this carrot cake from Food.com, this is not my original recipe - find the original link here, and I'll copy the ingredients down below.

4 Eggs

1 1/4 cups Vegetable oil

2 cups White sugar

2 teaspoons Vanilla extract

2 teaspoons Baking soda

2 teaspoons Baking powder

1/2 teaspoon Salt

2 teaspoons Cinnamon

3 cups Shredded carrots

1 cup Chopped nuts (optional - I opted out of nuts for this recipe)

You can always click this link here for detailed instructions on how to make this carrot cake yourself - so instead of retyping all of that information, instead I'm going to share with you a silly baking story.

This recipe calls for shredded carrots, right? Well, attempting to save a bit of money - plus, I'll be honest, I didn't fully think it through - I decided to buy a couple bags of baby carrots. Let me tell you, trying to shred  cups worth of baby carrots is a HUGE pain! Not literally, I fortunately didn't cut myself, but it still took a lot of time, and it left a big mess. But still, these are the things I do for those that I love <3 cake="" carrot="" day:="" for="" here="" if="" making="" my="" of="" on="" plan="" s="" the="" u="" wisdom="" words="" you="">buy full-sized carrots!

 Trust me on that one.

Here area few more pictures of the process, as well as the finished products!

Making the icing pink was pretty easy to do - I bought a container of Betty Crocker cream cheese icing (I probably could've made it from scratch, but I opted to do icing from a can instead of cake from a box, which seemed fair), and then I used the pink dye from the Club House Neon Food Colouring 4 pack, which I mixed into the icing in a separate bowl.

While I didn't personally try any, my friends raved over the taste of these cupcakes, and after shredding all those baby carrots, I gave myself a well-deserved pat on the back. My mother also loved them and told me I was required to leave a few cupcakes home before bringing them over to the birthday girl XD

Other than the silly carrot mistake, these were fun to make :) And I'm looking for inspiration on what I should try baking next! If you have any ideas or suggestions for me, please let me know in the comments below.