Valrico woman wins in Cooking Light contest

By: Janie Porter

Update: Christine Dohlmar won best dessert for her Carrot Cake with Toasted Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting recipe. She takes home $5,000. Congratulations!

Brandon, Florida – From sifting flour to melting butter to heating an oven to 350 degrees, baking can certainly be stressful at times. But for Christine Dohlmar of Valrico, stress in the kitchen takes on new meaning Tuesday.

Her recipe for carrot cake with toasted coconut cream cheese frosting is going up against two other dessert recipes in an annual reader recipe contest for Cooking Light magazine.

Dohlmar and the other contestants, who are entering recipes for old-fashioned oatmeal honey apple cake and decadent double chocolate bundt cake, will do their baking on-site at Kings Cooking Studio in Short Hills, New Jersey Tuesday. Winners will be announced at a reception and dinner afterwards.

Dohlmar’s carrot cake recipe includes the traditional, including flour and cinnamon, but there are also some unique ingredients, including carrot baby food.

“I use it to compensate for only using a quarter cup of oil. It adds flavor and moisture,” Dohlmar said as she added shredded carrots to a mixing bowl.

The magazine requires the recipes be lower in fat and calories than traditional recipes and contain at least one of Cooking Light’s product sponsors.

Dohlmar is no stranger to the Cooking Light competition. She entered a banana coconut rum cookie in the contest in 2005.

“I lightened it with I didn’t use any eggs. I used low-fat mayonnaise,” she recalled. She didn’t win in 2005, but her recipe was featured in the magazine.

This year, she’s crafted a unique recipe she hopes will help her carrot cake stand out.

“I’ve never seen a carrot cake use oatmeal and the baby food. I’ve seen baby food carrots used but not with shredded carrots together, so it’s quite original,” she said.

Dohlmar has been baking since she was a little girl. She credits her mother for her passion.

“The main memory I have is the Christmas cookies. We’d put them in the cylinder, all the different shapes. I don’t know how she had the patience with five children but we had every color, every shape and it was just wonderful,” Dohlmar said with a reflective pause.

Dohlmar is bringing her mother, who’s now 84, to the competition Tuesday.

A good luck charm, perhaps?

We’ll see.