Carrot Cake

At the very last minute, Babycakes and I decided we wanted to take carrot cake to our respective Easter festivities.  We thought it would be cute to try our hand at carving and make the cake carrot shaped as well.  I found a recipe by Paula Deen and decided to give it a try.  BC was unavailable to help with the baking, so I set out on the daunting task of grating the carrots by myself.  It took me nearly an hour to grate all the carrots needed, the whole time I was swearing to myself that I'd never make carrot cake again. (I am probably a much slower grater than normal people.  It took 9 carrots and I took breaks between each.)  The recipe I used had baking instructions to make a 9in round cake.  That was going to work if I wanted to carve my cake to look like a carrot, so I made up my own instructions.  I greased, floured, and used a 13x9 pan lined with parchment paper, set the oven to 350, and set the timer for half an hour and then checked every 5 minutes after that.  The inside was still a little underdone when I pulled it out at the 50 minute mark, but the edges had pulled away from the pan and looked like they might burn if I baked it any longer. I left it in the pan on a cooling rack overnight.  I did put a cover over it when it was still a little warm, which I think attributed to it being so moist the next day.


BC was able to help me the next day with the icing portion.  I let her do all the work on making the icing while I cut the cake diagonally and removed it from the pan.  I spent a long time on the first cake trying to find the perfect triangle shape.  When I got to the second cake I realized if I just cut the correct angle off the top of the cake, I wouldn't have to trim the sides.  We immediately devoured the discarded cake parts.  Wow, so delicious!  When we first thought about carving the cake, we had grand delusions of making it round like a carrot as well, but since we each wanted to take a full cake to our parties, we were left with only one layer each that wasn't thick enough to carve into the round shape.  I think this worked out fine, the cake was so dense that a second layer might have been too much.  


When the icing was done, we set aside about a half a cup and dyed it green for the leaves.  The rest we dyed orange for the carrot.  The icing recipe made plenty to cover both cakes with a little left over.  


I took my cake to brunch at my aunt's house while BC took hers to dinner at her grandmother's.  Both families LOVED the cakes.  Even after being refrigerated for 2 days (we finished baking on Friday) they stayed super moist and fresh.  It was definitely worth all the work grating the carrots and I would definitely try this recipe again! 


CAKE
YOU WILL NEED:

butter for pan
2 c. all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
2 c. sugar
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp salt
4 eggs
1 1/2 c. vegetable oil
3 c. grated carrots


PREPARATIONS:


1. Prehead oven to 350 degrees.


2. Grease and flour a 13x9 baking pan.  Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper.

3. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.  


4. Add eggs and vegetable oil. Using a hand mixer, blend until combined.  

5. Mix in carrots. 

6. Pour into pans.  Bake for approximately 50 minutes (We set ours for 30 mins and checked every 5 minutes.   Ours was slightly underdone in the center but that helped keep it super moist when we stored it, you may be able to bake yours longer.)

7.  Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes.  Remove from pans, place on wax paper, and allow to cool completely before frosting.  (We left ours in the pan over night with an airtight cover.)

8. If carving to carrot shape, cut the cake in half diagonally.  You can either stack your layers or make two cakes.  The easiest way to make the carrot shape is to cut the flat top of the triangle at the right angle to make an isosceles triangle.   

ICING
YOU WILL NEED:

2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, room temperature
1 stick salted butter, room temperature
2 c. confectioner's sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract


PREPARATIONS:


1. Add all ingredients into a medium bowl and beat until fluffy using a hand mixer. 

2. Add food dye and beat until the color is even.  For the green we used 10 drops of green food dye.  For the orange we used 15 drops of red and 15 drops of yellow. 

COVERING TIP:


Line the cake with toothpicks, then cover in aluminum foil.  The toothpicks will give the foil something to rest on without smearing the icing, and using foil instead of plastic wrap will keep it from drooping around the toothpicks.