A Desert Recipe - Ruth's Famous Carrot Cake

This is the famous Ruth Carrot Cake Recipe. In my opinion this is by far the best tasting carrot cake recipe in existence. This recipe is named after my sister-in-law Ruth. She introduced it to me and she has been making it for over 25 years and it is fantastic. I think you will find it tastes much better than anything you can buy in a bakery or store.

This is Part 1 of the recipe, the cake portion, the icing portion is below in Part 2.

You will want to use a large size mixing bowl to mix all of the following ingredients.
2 Cups flour
2 cups Sugar
2 Teaspoons Baking soda
2 Teaspoons Cinnamon
1 Teaspoon salt
4 Eggs
1 and 1/4 cup Canola Oil
1/4 cup applesauce
6 Large Carrots.

First take your large mixing bowl and add your 2 cups of flour, 2 cups of sugar, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 2 teaspoons cinnamon and 1 teaspoon of salt.

Stir all these ingredients together and then set aside. Next in your mixing bowl beat your 4 eggs until fluffy. Then with the mixer running slowly pour in the 1 and 1/4 cup canola oil and the 1/4 cup applesauce.

Next with the mixer running on high speed slowly add your first bowl of ingredients and beat on high for 2 minutes.

This next step you will probably want to do ahead of time. Take your 6 large carrots and grate them with big 1/4 inch holes on a grater. This should produce 3 cups of grated carrots.

At this point you want to slowly blend in your 3 cups of grated carrots to your mix. You want to have your mixer running at low speed for this and you do not want to mix the carrots for very long.

This recipe will make enough cake batter for two 9 inch cake pans or one 9 by 13 inch pan.

Pour the cake batter in the pans and preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Bake about 42 minutes for a 9 by 13 inch pan and 30 minutes for the 9 inch round pans.

Please let your cake cool completely before icing.

Part 2 - Preparing The Icing

Icing Ingredients
1 8 ounce cream cheese
1/2 cup or 1 stick of butter
2 tablespoons vanilla
1 box 16 ounces powdered sugar or 3 and 3/4 cups
1 cup walnuts

Next while your cake is baking you can prepare your icing. In a good-sized mixing bowl add the 8 ounces of cream cheese, the 1/2 cup of butter and the 2 tablespoons vanilla. Next add your 16 ounces powdered sugar (3 and 3/4 cups) and 1 cup walnuts.

Note: Before adding the walnuts you want to chop them into small pieces.

Using your mixer blend all of your icing ingredients until the icing is thoroughly mixed.

Once your cake has cooled you can add the icing to the cake. For best results let your finished cake sit in your refrigerator overnight before serving. Serve the carrot cake to your guests and get ready for the complements.