Carrot Cake

Carrot cake! Carrot cake used to bother me because of my dislike for carrots. I think it was out of hunger desperation one day that I actually got around to trying one and realized it tastes nothing like carrots. And the cream cheese frosting is just my favourite.

Besides, it could just as well be an apple cake or pineapple cake, right? Just substitute portions!

Unfortunately, my sister took our nicer camera with her to New York so these photos are far less impressive. Nonetheless:

Makes 2 8-inch or 9-inch layers or one 13x9 cake

Cake ingredients:

- 3 medium carrots

- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar (I used 1 cup because I'm not too big on sugar)

- 1 cup vegetable oil 

- 3 large eggs

- 2 cups all-purpose flour

- 1/2 tsp cinnamon

- 1 tsp baking soda

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 1/4 tsp nutmeg

- 3 tbsp applesauce

- 2 tbsp milk

- 1 cup coarsely chopped nuts (I used walnuts)

Cream cheese frosting: (with frostings I recommend doubling up on ingredients in case you mess up)

- 8 ounces (1 cup) room temperature cream cheese

- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

- 2/3 cup cold heavy whipping cream
- 1/2 confectioners' sugar (icing or powder), sifted

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Spray down your cake trays with a cooking spray/ butter and flour them/ or if you're like me and super paranoid, butter them and line with parchment paper. 

Peel your carrots with your fruit/vegetable peeler and grate them down with the large grater holes.

I originally used 4 carrots which was way too much! 

Not a good carrot to grate (it's too thin!) but makes for a good wizarding wand

Separately, beat your sugar, vegetable oil, and eggs with your eggbeater. Once well mixed, add in everything else except the carrots and nuts. 

Mix those in nicely, then add in the nuts and carrots. I used full walnuts rather than buying the already cracked sets since they're actually quite pricey! I cracked about 10 walnuts, you can use more if you like more crunch in your cake. 

If you're doing layers, divide evenly and flatten out the batter, that's important!

If doing layers, bake for 25-35 minutes. If doing one cake, bake for 45-55 minutes. Make sure you check on them so they're not too hard/burn. Let it cool for about an hour. I've had cakes break on me from being too hot and it's a horrible feeling.

You can see why I used parchment paper to line my trays. Comes off nice and clean.

Carefully cut across the tops of the cakes to make sure they're flat. The difference between a slightly lopsided cake and a perfectly flat cake is that each of your layers are flat. I have a giant knife that I use to cut across. A tip would be to measure down the sides of your cake, then place toothpicks around your cake to show where you want to cut it to.

Now comes the frosting. Frosting/icing has always been the thing that pushes me far far away from doing cakes or cupcakes. This is the same recipe I used for the red velvet cupcakes (because it's absolutely delicious), but it's a bit of a hit or miss. I had to make 2 batches last time to get a good one and I had to make 3 batches this time around to finally get a good one.

Start with your whipping cream. Beat that with an eggbeater (I suggest a hand one since you keep a better eye on it) for about 5 or so minutes. Note that it's not a precise time that you should beat it, you really do have to keep watch. You want it just so when you lift up the cream with the eggbeater, it'll stay in that position. It's alright if it's a soft peak (softly holds that peak when you lift it up) because you will beat it with the cream cheese later.

Separately, beat your cream cheese, vanilla extract, and icing sugar. You don't really have much time to beat it when it's mixed with the whipped cream, so beat it meticulously now. Have your cream cheese at room temperature because it's much easier to get lumps out. Once it's soft and whipped, lightly fold in your whipped cream, beat for about 15-30 seconds. You really just want it mixed. What you should see is the ripples from the eggbeater actually staying in the frosting batter and not sinking away. If not, either beat it for 15-30 more seconds, or you've over beat it already. That's why it takes me 2-3 times to get this frosting right, it's so easy to mess up yet hard to tell, so give yourself time to get it right.

Your frosting batter should come out like this. It should be fluffy and light, but holding all the shapes you make in it.

Frost the layers of your cake, starting from bottom to up.

Don't mind mine, it's really not cut flat, I was losing patience. As well, there's my giant knife that I use to cut the tops of my cakes. This was my 2nd batch of frosting which was way too runny (as you can see).

Assemble your cakes and frost all over. I stuck mine in the fridge overnight after frosting and piping it completely.

And a lovely day of baking was over. My new piping tips and coupler, ahh! 

In the morning, I took my cake out from the fridge, and look!

You can see the original (and runny) frosting on the sides, which irks me to no end, but the 3rd batch of non-runny frosting is what I piped with. And it actually doesn't move in the least bit (I'm just not a good piper).

And that's a carrot cake! Enjoy baking!

- Jane