Junior’s Carrot Cake with a Cheesecake center and Junior’s Cream Cheese Frosting

Junior’s Cheesecake Cookbook calls these Skyscraper Cheesecakes. This cake generously fed about 16 of my lovely friends at my graduation party, and I had about 4-5 large servings left over.

This carrot cake was a joy to make- and eat! It does not taste boxed at all. It’s not overly spicy or sweet, and has great texture and moistness. I don’t like Junior’s cheesecake flavor and texture so I used this recipe for the cheesecake with a regular graham cracker crust in a 10-inch springform pan. You don't really need a crust though. However, Junior’s Cream Cheese Frosting is to die for. 

For the carrot cake, I used two 10-inch pans and one 9-inch pan to place a little cake batter in for crumbling on top of the cake. Junior’s suggest to freeze the cheesecake and chill the carrot cake for assembly. I did not. I chilled my cheesecake and left the carrot cake out at room temperature and assembled the cake- it came out perfectly fine. It was easy to handle. Despite the warning, I did not use parchment paper for the carrot cake and it came out fine. I’ve made carrot cake before, so I knew to pay attention to “finely grated” because you don’t want chunks of carrot in your cake. The recipe does not specify what kind of apples, so I used Granny Smith (2 medium sized) and it came out wonderful. Don’t be afraid- it is still a carrot cake, but the green apple just adds a great depth of flavor. Since I used bigger pans, I baked my carrot cake at 300 degrees F for 38 minutes. I will give you Junior’s original recipe for the carrot cake.

Junior’s Carrot Cake

2 cups all purpse flour
2 tsp baking pwder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
¾ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
½ cup dark raisins
Boiling water
4 extra large eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
¼ cup heavy or whipping cream
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups peeled and finely grated carrots
¾ cup peeled, cored, and minced apples
¾ cup finely chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Generously butter the bottom and sides of three 9-inch round layer cake pans (you’ll need three layers, two for the cake and one to break into crumbs for the top). Very important: Line the bottom of all three pans with parchment or waved paper (don’t let the paper come up the sides).

Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda together in a medium sized bowl and set aside. Place the raisins in a small saucepan, cover them with boiling water, cover the pan, an dlet soak until nice and plump, about 15-20 minutes. Drain well and let stand on paper towels.

Beat the eggs in a large bowl with an electric mixer on high until light yellow, about 5 minutes. With the mixer still running, gradually add the sugar, then slowly drizzle in the oil, then the cream and vanilla. When the batter is light golden and airy, it’s ready (this usually takes a total of 15-20 minutes of beating). Stir in the flour mixture, then stir in the carrots, apples, walnuts, and raisins.

Divide the batter evenly between the three cake pans and bake until the centers spring back when lightly touches and a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out with moist crumbs, about 45 minutes. Let the cakes cool in the pans on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then turn the m out onto the rack and peel off the paper liners. Let the cakes cool completely, about 2 hours, then wrap each layer in plastic wrap and refrigerate.

Junior’s Cream Cheese Frosting

Three 8 ounce packages of cream cheese (use only full fat), at room temperature
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
6 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar  (1  and 1/2 pounds)
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup heavy or whipping cream

Beat the cream cheese and butter together in a medium sized bowl with the mixer on high speed.  Add the confectioners’ sugar, then the vanilla, beating until smooth.  With the mixer running, gradually add the cream and beat until the frosting looks whipped and creamy. Add a little more cream if necessary until it’s easy to spread. Set out the carrot cake layers and break the least attractive one into coarse crumbs. Assemble cake with frosting between each layer and frost on top. Decorate with crumbs.