Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Prepare a 9×13 pan by smearing all the edges and corners with butter. I liked to add a piece of parchment paper on top of this, and butter that, as well. This is an extra step, but helps if you want to pull the whole cake out of the pan easily.

Grate the carrots on the smallest hole of your box grater. Place the shredded carrots in between two sheets of paper towel, and place a plate on them to help squeeze out any excess liquid.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the sugar, olive oil, eggs, applesauce, sourdough starter, and vanilla. Mix on medium speed for about 2 minutes, until it is all combined well. This step adds some air bubbles into the batter, so don’t skip it.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, ginger, nutmeg and cloves.

In a medium mixing bowl, add the carrots with 1 Tablespoon of the dry ingredients mixture and toss to coat. This helps your carrots to evenly distribute in the cake batter.

Add the dry ingredients to the stand mixer and stir until just combined.

Fold in the carrots and 1 cup of chopped walnuts (save the over cup for decoration after frosting).

Pour the cake batter into the prepared pan and smooth out to make sure its even in the pan.

Bake the cake for 50-60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the cake does not jiggle when you gently shake the pan.

Cool the cake in the pan completely.

When the cake has completely cooled, you can mix the frosting.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the softened cream cheese and mix until it is soft and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

Add in the powdered sugar, vanilla, milk , and a pinch of sea salt.

Mix on medium speed until combined and fluffy.

Frost over the cake.

Sprinkle the remaining 1 cup of chopped walnuts over the frosting.