52 weeks of baking: 8 - zucchini carrot cake

Have you ever had carrot cake? Who hasn't really? Aside from myself. I'm not sure if I have ever tried it. I think I've stayed away because I used to despise carrots and I'm still not a huge fan of them unless they're cooked to the point where they don't taste like carrots anymore. Soft and smooshy please! But the idea of carrot cake is interesting and appealing to me these days. A dessert with veggies in it? Two birds with one stone, y'all.

This is, as the title gives away, a zucchini and carrot cake. Double the veggies! I found the recipe in a cookbook my momma gave me a few years back, a 25 year collection of recipes from "Women of the Farm Bureau". It was first printed in 1981. Sooo, recipes from the 50's to the 80's? Cool! There are a gazillion recipes in there, most of them winners I'm sure.

The recipes are so simple, nothing fluffy or fancy. Just what you need. Kind of a breath of fresh air since my usual recipes are chock-full of side comments, pictures, and general fluff. Not that I mind, but it was just nice to get back to basics.

Definitely not the most appealing cake batter I've ever made. For once in my baking life I did not try (or pig out on) the batter. Raw carrots, bleh.

It came out pretty dang good! Didn't taste like carrots at all, phew! It's a little like banana bread, I blame that on the cinnamon and probably, the produce. The texture is great, it's nice and moist and still pretty fluffy. And it was a breeze to throw together. Basically a one bowl wonder. Oh and the cream cheese icing? It's awesome. I used butter instead of the margarine in the icing because, well, I don't cook with margarine. But it's good, y'all. I'm bookmarking that puppy.

The strangest thing about this recipe was the actual size of the cake. It called for a 9 inch square pan, something I did not have in my growing bake ware collection. But, after I quick search, I now do. I think this cake would probably be better in a 8 inch square. Or doubled into two 9 inch cakes and stacked. It's pretty thin, which is interesting and doesn't take away from the taste at all, but a little strange visually. Also, how do you store an 9 inch square cake? It was too big to fit in my cake domes, and I refuse to keep cakes in their pans and not ice the sides (that's basically baking blasphemy), so it is living on a cutting board covered with lots of extra glamorous foil. Cute. It's what's inside that counts, right?