Shrunken Big Carrot Cake.

Continuation of the previous post...I made the Big Bill's Carrot Cake from Dorie's book, made a few modifications. One of which was soaking the raisins in rum for about 30 minutes and letting them get plump and puffy, it was a great addition, just gave a little more flavor to the cake itself. So the full recipe got me: 24 mini cupcakes, 6 large cupcakes, and this 6" 3 layer cake, which I baked in a deep 6" pan for what felt like forever.

It was interesting because the layer cake took so long to bake, it had a totally different color than the regular carrot spice cuppies, or maybe it was the addition of the raisins, coconut and nuts that gave it the dark hue. The carrot spice cuppies were light golden brown and the cake was dark gingerbready. Yum.


I'm still learning on the cutting, filling, layering thing, but I was very proud of this one. Esp since my frosting/smoothing skills leave much to be desired, so I am learning to make nice swirls in the frosting so that it looks less like I can't smooth than 'I meant for it to look like this'. Which in this case I did. Because I was too lazy to smooth or do anything else after spending 2+ hours on the project.





The cake was chock full of yummy goodness, very moist, and rich at the same time. I love carrot cake but I could only have a smallish piece before I would literally feel FULL. I also made more of the frosting than the recipe called for, so 1 1/2 of the recipe because I wanted to make sure I had enough, I hate running out and I hate thin frosting layers in a cake.



I read in another post that someone subb'd 1/2 applesauce for 1/2 oil, what a fab idea and something I do in muffins but I was too chicken the first time around to try it with the cake. Next time I might get creative.

Recipe is below for how I adapted the original recipe. Cream cheese frosting followed what was listed in the book but just made more...so basically 12oz cream cheese, 1 stick room temperature unsalted butter, fresh squeezed Meyer lemon juice and confectioners sugar til you get a consistency you like. I tend to go lighter on sugar and and more on cream cheese and butter since I don't like a sugary tasting frosting.