MAJOR FAIL: experimenting is not always as easy as it looks

Get the tissue box ready, I have a sad story for you...

So lately I've been pretty confident in my baking skills...dare I say overconfident. Silly me, I had this idea that I could invent, with no recipe book to lean on, my own recipe for sugar/flour free carrot cake with sugar free cream cheese frosting. And after my THIRD time trying to make these, I have finally realized that perhaps the world isn't ready for my original work. HOWEVER, I am a big fan of carrot cake, and with a little help from my friends at Food, I Love You, I am determined to make the perfect carrot cake AND the perfect sugar free cream cheese frosting.



My second try at making carrot cake muffins (the first aren't even worth mentioning) looked sooo good...and actually were ok...

it was the frosting that was bad. I think I've mentioned this before: NEVER try to substitute splenda (or any other sugar substitute) for powdered sugar...never ever. My poor cupcakes :(

 So I took a different approach to frosting and found a couple recipes that used sugar-free Jell-O pudding mix. Unfortunately, what I discovered is that Jello-O likes to hog the spotlight from all the other ingredients. It turned cream cheese frosting into vanilla Jell-O with the slightest hint of cream cheese. And for someone who doesn't like Jello-O pudding, this wasn't a good thing. (Although, now looking at this picture and seeing the "6 1/2 cup servings," I might've just used too much. Oopsies...)

And the cookies weren't too great either (yeah, I decided to switch to carrot cookies); I used rice flour and not enough sweetener which gave it a weird aftertaste.

Dont' worry, there is a point to this anecdote! As I keep trying to find a good cream cheese frosting recipe, I am going to work on making the perfect carrot cake cookie. Because...ta-da! New idea: carrot cake sandwich cookies with cream cheese center (isn't that a mouthful!)