Applesauce Carrot Cake

I've been looking for ideas on what to bake next. There are so many recipes out there I want to try, but so little time on my hand. Whatever I decide to make have to click with me. When I'm on tastespotting, I'm just like a child oohing and aahing at every delicious treats. In my browser, a pile of saved recipes are all yelling and begging me to try them.

What clicked with me last weekend was carrot cake. I enjoyed a fluffy carrot cupcake from Dots a few days before my take on carrot cake. The cupcake had less sugar, which balanced perfectly with the slightly more sugared cream cheese frosting. And the frosting wasn't sky-high. There was just enough for you to indulge in that mini cake.

I tried this applesauce carrot cake from The Baker's Dozen Cookbook. It's not a fluffy delicate like the one from Dots, but it certainly has deeper flavor. Adding the applesauce also makes the cake more moist, but I think it makes it a bit more dense too.

To cut down on the fattiness, I dotted the cream cheese on top instead of frosting and layering the cake. I definitely miss the cream cheese frosting on my cake though.

For my next trial with carrot cake, I'm going to leave out the applesauce and see what that do to the cake. Maybe I'll get low fat cream cheese and just indulge myself in cheesy sweet frosting.

Dotted cream cheese frosting on applesauce carrot cake