Baby Carrot Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting
This recipe for baby carrot bars is the perfect combination of totally tasty and nearly foolproof. It’s a win-win! It came to me from my Grandma Ellen, though I don’t believe it was any sort of family heirloom recipe passed down through the ages. I’m guessing she acquired it from a friend or neighbor. She may have only made them a few times herself. (She passed in 1993 so I can’t confirm.) I was fortunate enough to score some and I was hooked!
The recipe also appeared in a cookbook created in 1978 by my high school’s music boosters group, listed under someone else’s name, so it appears to be a popular one from that time and place. Nonetheless, Grandma baked them for me and she originally provided me the recipe so she gets the credit here.
Grandma’s kitchen
Memories fade with time, but I don’t remember Grandma Ellen baking a large variety of sweets and desserts. She was a tough farm woman who lost her husband (my grandfather) to cancer in the late 1960’s. She and my father (her son) maintained her 240 acres of crop and pasture land with a few cattle and some chickens until Alzheimer’s forced her into a nursing home a couple decades later. Between caring for cattle and chickens, keeping a large garden, helping with crops and harvest, involvement in church and the ladies’ prayer group, and frequent time spent with two young granddaughters who lived 1/4 mile up the road there probably wasn’t a lot of extra time left to be creative in the kitchen.
There are a few baked goods I do remember well. She made really tasty shortcake (perfect with fresh strawberries from her garden). I first learned of potato donuts through her – also delicious. From the notes I have on copies of her handwritten recipes, these were the ones I’d consider more “heirloom”.
And then there was the Bundt cake! I knew as passed from the back porch through the kitchen door of her farmhouse, if I turned immediately to the right I would find a round tray or plate with a plastic lift-off lid sitting on the countertop. I was almost guaranteed to find a super moist, super heavy marble Bundt cake or what was left of one under that lid. (Side tidbit: I believe the cabinet directly above the tasty Bundt cake was where she always stocked a couple packets of Chiclets fruit-flavored gum.)
My aunt was able to find the shortcake, donuts and Bundt cake recipes for me after Grandma passed. I about fell over when I learned that the Bundt cake requires 12 egg yokes and 2 whole eggs. No wonder it was so wonderfully dense and moist! Grandma raised chickens and sold eggs locally to her friends and neighbors. What was a dozen here or there used in her own baking? It’s not like now where I pay $5.00 for two dozen at Costco.
Maybe someday I’ll give those other recipes a “go”, and if I can successfully replicate them I’ll post them on my blog. But for now, let’s talk Baby Carrot Bars!
Baby carrot bars
These things are just so stinking good! I have to refrain from baking them unless I’m taking them somewhere and I can guarantee I’ll only be left with a couple in the pan. I have zero willpower when it comes to limiting myself if they’re within walking distance. I’ll have one…and then another. Pretty soon I’ve had four. Even my husband who doesn’t care for anything made with “orange colored” vegetables will devour these. They’re super moist and the cream cheese frosting makes them practically irresistible.
Because they’re sort of like a spice cake but in bar form, they make a good treat for fall gatherings. My birthday is in the fall and I often baked and took them to work to share with my colleagues. Thoughtful, wasn’t I? I had an ulterior motive – I was guaranteed to be able to enjoy a few myself – happy birthday to me!
I bake them in what I’ve always called a cookie sheet pan. At 12×16 it’s not quite half-sheet cake size. Maybe it’s a jelly roll pan. I think I’d be fine using a slightly smaller pan…maybe 10×15. The bars would just turn out a bit thicker. Don’t go any smaller than that though. They’re bars, not cake. I’m pretty sure it would be dry on the edges by the time the center was fully cooked. They’re very forgiving. If you overbake them a bit in the sheet pan they’ll still be nice and moist, I promise.
Also, they are called baby carrot bars not because you use baby carrots for them but because they actually call for pureed carrot baby food. Yes…baby food. (Wipe that horrified look off your face.) It’s no different than cooking and pureeing carrots but it’s way faster. Because of the oil in the recipe, you don’t even need to prep the baking sheet. Just mix everything together and bake it, stir up the frosting while things cool, and slather it on. I always seem to end up with a couple tablespoons of extra frosting (this may be on purpose) and of course I wouldn’t want it to go to waste, so I eat it!
Helpful Tips
If you’re serving the bars somewhere other than home (i.e., you’re taking them to a work potluck), it’s best to frost and refrigerate them to firm up the frosting before you cover with aluminum foil or plastic wrap. Remove the covering before they come back to room temperature. Otherwise all that wonderful cream cheese goodness will peel off the bars and cling to the covering and you’ll have a bit of a sticky situation (pun intended).
I sometimes refrigerate them and then cut them into individual bars and place them on serving trays. I then refrigerate again until I’m ready to leave. By then, the frosting is good and cold and it’s easy to cover them without an issue. Remove the covering when you arrive and they’re ready to go. The other option is to take them to your function naked (the bars, not you!) and then frost them quickly before serving. I’ve done it both ways. Pack a spatula or frosting knife just in case you need to do some touchups.
Be sure to let me know in the comments how they turned out for you. Enjoy!
Baby Carrot Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting
Equipment
- 1 cookie sheet or jelly roll pan approximately 12"x16"
- 1 hand mixer
Ingredients
- 4 large eggs
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup vegetable oil (canola or similar; olive is too strong)
- 2 2-packs Stage 2 carrot baby food (4-oz. per container; 16-oz. total)
- 2 cups flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp salt
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 1 8-oz. package cream cheese (regular, not low fat – at room temperature)
- 4 tbsp butter (softened)
- 1½ cups powdered sugar
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl combine eggs, sugar and oil; beat with hand mixer until creamy
- Add remaining ingredients and beat on low until well combined
- Bake in cookie sheet pan at 350°F for 22-25 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean
- Cool thoroughly and frost; refrigerate if not serving immediately
- Yield – approximately 30 bars (2" x 3")
