Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Swiss Meringue Icing

Carrot cake made with finely grated whole carrots and topped with a lightly cream cheese swiss meringue buttercream

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Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour three 6″ cake rounds, line bottoms with parchment circles.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine vegetable oil and sugars. Beat until well combined, about 2 mins. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating after each addition. Add vanilla and mix until incorporated.
Add flour mixture in 3 parts, careful not to overmix. Fold in carrots.
Spread batter evenly into prepared pans and bake for 45-55 minutes, or until a cake tester or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Cool cakes in their tins for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Combine egg whites, sugar and salt in a heatproof bowl. Set over a bain-marie and cook, stirring constantly, until 160°F. Remove from heat and pour into a Kitchenaid mixer bowl fitted with a whisk attachment.
Beat on high until stiff peaks form and the bowl is cool to the touch. This may take 10 minutes or more.
Change to a paddle attachment, add room temperature butter and mix on the lowest setting until butter is incorporated and frosting is light and fluffy. This may take 15 minutes or more, but stay on the lowest setting. If it looks curdled, keep mixing. When in doubt, keep mixing.
At this point, you have made swiss meringue buttercream. Set aside.
Beat your room temperature cream cheese for at least 5 minutes until very fluffy and smooth. Add vanilla and mix.
Add your swiss meringue buttercream to your cream cheese in thirds. Do not add your cream cheese to your swiss meringue buttercream. It will not mix in properly.
Your frosting is ready to use as is, or you can add food coloring. I added whitener and a drop of purple to whiten the majority of the frosting. Then for decorations, I removed ¼ cup and added orange food coloring for the carrots and removed another ¼ cup and added dark green food coloring for the leaves.

You can either build one cake with three thick layers, two cakes with three thin layers or one cake with six thin layers. I like to cut each baked layer in half and make (2) thin, three-layered cakes.
With an offset spatula, swipe a teaspoon of your frosting onto the cake board to hold the first layer in place.
Place one layer of cake onto the cake board. Top with about 1/2 cup of buttercream and spread evenly. Repeat with remaining layers. Frost and smooth the outside with a thin crumb coat and chill to set the crumb coat.
Spread a thicker layer of frosting on the top and outside with offset spatula. Smooth with a bench scraper. If desired, pipe little carrots all over with orange and green icings.