Diabeti-cake

My father in law monitors his sugar very closely after being borderline diabetic for several years now, so when I was presented with the challenge of making a TRULY diabetic-friendly cake that even HE would enjoy, I had to think a bit outside of the box.  I scrapped all notions of a typical chocolate or yellow cake, since the sugar content is practically astronomical.  I kept leaning towards a carrot cake... and since I make it from scratch, I could easily alter the ingredients.

This is the recipe I came up with:

2 C unbleached flour
2 C Ideal xylitol (a sugar replacement)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 T cinnamon
3 cups freshly grated carrots
4 eggs
1 C oil (I would have tried coconut oil, but in favor of not changing too much at once, I stuck with the Smart Balance blended oil)
1 tsp vanilla
1 C freshly chopped walnuts
1/2 C raisins (I used regular raisins since I couldn't find my golden raisins)

I baked in 2- 8" round pans at 350, and they were done at the 30 minute mark.  It didn't rise as much as I would have liked, and was a little drier than I prefer, so I might play with the ratios a little in the future.

And now comes the trick of having something to frost the cake... yes, I want my cake and I want to eat it, too!  Icing uses powdered sugar, so I powdered the remaining bit of xylitol (just over 5 oz) in my blender.  I added a spoonful of cornstarch to help it out (as per my research on making my own powdered sugar).  In my opinion, carrot cake should always be frosted with a cream cheese frosting, so I whipped up an 8-oz. block of cream cheese with some vanilla and added the powdered xylitol to the mix.  WOW it was a lot sweeter than I anticipated, so I added another 4 oz. of cream cheese and some egg white powder to (hopefully) stabilize it a little.

I put a thin layer of my frosting in between the layers and put it in the fridge so that it would handle a little better, then iced the sides and rolled in freshly chopped pecans (that was kinda fun!!)

When it was evenly coated with the chopped pecans, I placed it on the final cake board:

Then I took some of the remaining pecans and did a free-hand monogram

Voila!!

The ultimate test is to come- the official TASTE!!!

(edited to add) The taste test went over VERY well!  My concerns about the density and moisture content were proven incorrect, and I had a very hard time discerning the flavor difference from a sugar based recipe.  Laura ate almost a whole piece (she despises carrots!), and 2 taste testers took second (generous) helpings... including his Excellence, the Arch Bishop of Slovakia, Jan Sokol!  THAT is a high commendation, indeed!