Light Yet Delicious Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Carrot cake is one of my favorite cakes. It somehow lessens the guilt of eating cakes when you know that it has a vegetable in one of the ingredients. Even though this type of cake is good, it still packs a large amount of calories. A typical carrot cake with cream cheese frosting (3 oz slice) contains 425 calories. Yikes! This recipe from Cooking Light magazine is 100 calories less than the regular recipe. It also has coconut flakes, crushed pineapple and pecans (which I omitted since I don't like any kind of nuts in my desserts). Since I didn't have crushed pineapple, I used apple sauce (1 cup). Even with the substitutions, the resulting cake still was delicious. Dh loved it and commented that it is so light and moist. I only used half the amount of confectioner's sugar in the frosting and it was still too sweet for my taste. So next time I make the frosting, I will only use 1 cup confectioner's sugar and omit the butter entirely. I'm sharing the original recipe so you can tweak it to suit your taste.

Cake:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (about 6 3/4 ounces)
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut
1/3 cup chopped pecans
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons canola oil
2 large eggs
2 cups grated carrot
1 1/2 cups canned crushed pineapple, drained
Cooking spray

Frosting:
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 (8-ounce) block 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Additional grated carrot (optional)
Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°.

To prepare cake, lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, sugar, coconut, pecans, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl; stir well with a whisk. Combine oil and eggs; stir well. Stir egg mixture, grated carrot, and pineapple into flour mixture. Spoon batter into a 13 x 9-inch baking pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack.

To prepare frosting, combine butter and cream cheese in a large bowl. Beat with a mixer at medium speed until smooth. Beat in powdered sugar and vanilla just until smooth. Spread frosting over top of cake. Garnish each serving with grated carrot, if desired.