a serving of veggies.

i've told y'all about pat before.

i don't know who pat is, but i love pat. i love pat for sharing her {or could pat be a dude, i don't know} award winning carrot cake recipe on all recipes.

i used this recipe twice in the past week - once for a bake sale at work benefiting relay for life & once {for work} just because. i didn't bake a cake, however. instead, i made cupcakes* and not a 10" bundt cake** as the recipe calls.

behold, the beautiful crackberry photo {because i still haven't fixed my camera yet}:


for the carrot cake recipe, click here {i'm too hopped up on allergy meds lazy to type it out for you}. i did add some nutmeg & pumpkin pie spice to the recipe...just a dash of each.

as for the cream cheese frosting, yea, that is homemade, too. i used this recipe {again, from all recipes} and it hasn't failed me yet. my only advice is to whip, whip, whip the cream cheese first & then add the butter in small chunks. whipping the mess out of it makes a lighter, more enjoyable frosting in my opinion.

y'all this is a good carrot cake/cream cheese frosting combo. every time i've baked this cake, i've heard nothing but wonderful things. people love it. even people who don't like pecans or coconut {yes, both are in the cake} like this cake.

bake it. you know you wanna.

*the batter makes approximately 36 'regular' cupcakes or 24 'regular' cupcakes and 24 'mini' cupcakes.
** if you don't want to make a bundt cake or don't have a bundt pan, this batter makes a lovely two-layer 9" round cake.

I have a date with my oven tonight!

A good friend of our company, Thayer Masonry, Inc., is coming into town tomorrow for a short visit. Every time he comes to our office, we try to have something nice for him to snack on. The last time he was in town, I had made a carrot cake the night before and brought it in for us to eat at work. He tried a piece and loved it. So, tonight, I'm making carrot cake again; however, this time, I'm making cupcakes and not a "regular" cake. I love cupcakes. I made carrot cake cupcakes last weekend and they were so yummy...I can't wait to make some more tonight.

I got my recipe from All Recipes. I use Pat's Award Winning Carrot Cake recipe...it's no secret as to why it's called what it is once you taste the end product. It's delicious! The only "change" that I make is that I add some nutmeg...mmm! I also make my cream cheese frosting from scratch and I use the Cream Cheese Frosting II recipe (also found on All Recipe's website).

Just thinking about these cupcakes is making my mouth water!