Wednesday, June 4, 2008

A+ Carrot Cake with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting.



Oh Sweet, Sweet Melissa. You've captured my heart. This darling book has so many interesting recipes in it!! I first saw it on Gigi Cakes site...months ago when I was just starting to get into blogging. It seemed like almost every time I saw something I liked...it came from this book. I took advantage of my Amazon Prime account and ordered it right away with free 2 day ship.

And I've perused it many times...and bookmarked a bunch of goodies. For this just past Memorial Day...I wanted to make carrot cake for a family gathering. I liked Dorie's Bill's Carrot Cake made previously for my Earth Day Cupcake Hero in April, but I wanted to try Sweet Melissa's recipe after seeing Miss Gigi's cutie carrot cake back in early May.

So try it I did. And it was wonderful! Though I think that the really wonderful recipe transforming addition of really-rum-soaked raisins helped it out a little..you could taste the bursts of flavor as you bit into the cake. I soaked the raisins overnight so they were huge and plump the next morning. I also added diced pecans into the batter.



I didn't use the 2nd stick of butter that the cream cheese recipe called for, so the result was not enough frosting to have a 5 layer cake and frost the sides as well so I just did the more au natural cake look. It was just the right amount of frosting taste-wise though...sides as well might have been too much.



This is definitely my new go-to carrot cake recipe...it has a little more of the familiar carrot cake structure than Dorie's which was a little finer and lighter of a cake, barely held together by the nuts and raisins in that recipe. I also decided I didn't like coconut IN the cake, but I really like it as a topper for frosting.



When the cake arrived..it got a lot of oohs-and-aahs but the best compliment was from my Mom when she sliced it and bit in and pronounced it an A+. For anyone for reads my blog religiously, you might know that for Mother's Day I made my Mom a layered lemon cake, which turned out beautifully, and she thought it had too buttery of a frosting, even though she asked for a 'real buttercream'...and she has a major picky sweet tooth. She is always purchasing top-notch expensive desserts (wonder where I get my sweet tooth), so typically homemade for her is not as good as what you can get elsewhere which I don't necessarily agree with but hey...we're different! I still adore her.

So for her to pronounce it A+ and take a HUGE slab home with her....is high praise indeed. This post should have gone up 2 weeks ago so it's a little late, and I didn't get that many photos...it was kind of a hasty creation and decoration process due to time constraints...but it sure was yummy...I've been daydreaming about making it again.

For anyone who does not own the Sweet Melissa Baking Book, I highly recommend it. Between the Dorie book and this one, I have my hands full with 'stuff I want to bake'...I just don't have enough time or hands!

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow...I might have to get that book based on your picture and write-up alone! I used to go to Sweet Melissa when I lived in that neighborhood 10 years ago...how I miss it...

Honeyed Hashette said...

Yum! Looks yummy.
I love carrot cake.
We got your check and THANK YOU for the sweet recipe card. You're cute and thoughtful as always.

Mo said...

I admit...I don't like Carrot, but this looks good! I can't wait for my very own cake...soon to come!

How To Eat A Cupcake said...

I'll definitely have some please!!

Eleganza Strings/ The DeLadurantey Family said...

Nice pics!

Laura said...

I am a big fan of the no frosting on the sides. I think it is a fun, vintage look. The carrot cake pictures are beautiful....you have got me craving....
and congrats on pleasing your mother! Not many young women can do that!

Miranda said...

Looooooooooove carrot cake and looooooooooooove those layers. Yum!

betty geek said...

We have the same camera. I need to read the manual again. Why can't mine look like that? Natural lighting goes a long way!