a carrot cake birthday

last week, i was asked by a friend to bake a carrot cake for her boyfriend's birthday after i gave her a few whoopie pies i had made a day earlier (whoopie pies to be posted shortly). since i've never ventured into the realm of carrot cake (although i've had plenty) i researched a few recipes just to see what its deal was and i found out a few things. there are many many different variations of the carrot cake. the main issue it seems with baking a carrot cake is that it can come out dense and oily (since the carrot cake is traditionally made with oil, usually vegetable) and at times even too dry. i noticed a lot of recipes adding crushed pineapple or using a mixture of butter and oil to balance out the oiliness. my head was swimming around with more information than i could really sort out. the one thing i was sure of was the cream cheese frosting which i've done plenty of times.

keeping the cake simple, i went with the recipe out of my baking illustrated. it addressed the issue of how the oil would settle to the bottom of the cake with less-than-desired results by suggesting the method of emulsifying the batter using a food processor. once the sugars and eggs are processed, it advised to stream the oil into the mixture with the processor on to achieve a nice consistency and moistness in the cake. going with a simple mixture of flour, spices and grated carrots, i divvied up the batters into two 10-inch rounds and a 4-inch round - just to make sure it came out ok - which it did (see above pic... tasty!). using the 4-inch sample, i added the cream cheese and toasted walnuts for my version of what the completed cake would taste like. i found that the spices i used (cinnamon, nutmeg and a little cardamon) gave the cake a really nice flavor - reminiscent of pumpkin cake/pie. the cake itself was quite moist and the texture springy. the walnuts and frosting gave it a nice texture and really rounded out the flavors. overall, it seemed like a winner.

assembling the two layers sandwiched between a layer of cream cheese frosting, i slathered more frosting on the cake and coated the sides w/ some chopped, toasted walnuts, the final product turned out really nicely. i confess i messed up the alignment of the "happy birthday will" message so i added a little "rainbow" up on top to balance it out. in the end - the reviews for the cake were good. i'm not sure if i would change anything about the recipe i used, but i may try adding chopped walnuts to the batter the next time, just for a little texture. but i was happy with the result and was glad to hear others were as well!