I am totally behind in my Sweet Melissa posts and once again it’s 11:00 PM on Sunday night. I could go on with my excuses, but really, it’s more poor time management. Anyway, today’s recipe is Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. We have been eating tons of cake around here lately: in addition to last week’s Sweet Melissa selection, Roasted Pecan Cake with Caramel Orange Marmalade and Burnt Orange Buttercream, I made a raspberry-almond cake for my mom’s birthday two weeks ago, and today we had chocolate cake in celebration of Josh’s birthday (that one was made by his mother, though a large chunk came home with us). I hadn’t made a carrot cake for years, though, and couldn’t resist the opportunity to bake one. Besides, I had been buying large bags of carrots to make soup all winter, and with the warmer weather last week, I didn’t make any and had lots of carrots on hand.
The carrot cake was simple enough to make; the only laborious part of a carrot cake is shredding carrots. I do own a food processor, but the recipe said to shred them “medium fine,” so I used my box grater. The recipe called for a tablespoon and a half of cinnamon, which sounded like a lot of cinnamon, but I went with it, plus a small shake each of ground ginger and cloves. I made a mini cake in my 4.5-inch springform pans and the rest into cupcakes. Oh, actually muffins, since I didn’t end up frosting them. Josh left my cupcake courier at his office last time I forced my baked goods on his co-workers and they’ll be easier to transport unfrosted. For the cake, I used a different cream cheese frosting than the one in the book. My bloggy buddy Tracey has raved about Martha Stewart’s Cream Cheese Frosting (click here for the recipe), so I decided to give that one a try this time for the mini-cake. The proportion of sugar to butter and cream cheese in this recipe is much higher, which in my opinion makes it much yummier. It was also much fluffier, which is a good attribute for frosting.
This cake rated an 8.5 for Deliciousness and a 4 for Effort, giving it an EDR of 2.125. Many thanks to Julie of a Little Bit of Everything for giving us a chance to eat more cake! You can find the recipe here on Julie’s site and visit the SMS blogroll to see what the rest of the bakers thought of the cake.
12 comments:
Yum delicious! Muffins and a cake? Sounds great. Muffins sound like a great breakfast!
I hate grating carrots too! Your cakes look great.
Katie xox
Your cake looks beautiful! I am always baking SMS on Sunday. This week because I was hosting, I actually finished it on Saturday :)
Thanks for baking with me.
Your cake looks scrumptious!
mine ended up as "muffins" too. Looks great!
Whew, I am breathing a big sigh of relief that you enjoyed the cream cheese frosting recipe Margot :) I would have felt awful if I'd raved and then you hadn't been a fan. Your mini cake looks wonderful (thanks for the idea - I did the same thing!) as do your muffins. I'm sure they'll be a big hit!
Your cake look delicious. The muffins would be perfect for an after school snack.
Mimi
Best of both worlds, cake and muffins! Glad you liked them. Although I didn't use the amount of cinnamon in the recipe, I did add a few dashes of other spices, including ginger and cloves. The best part I thought was my addition of orange zest. So refreshing. Try it sometime.
Both your muffins and cake look great! I don't care for the grating carrots part either, but... :)
I am sorry, I did not make muffins. Cakes just don't go, in our house, usually, even when we love them.
Margot,
As they say, "better late than never". Sometimes life just gets in the way. It's great you were able to do it!
Have a great day!
Carmen
The cake and muffins look delicious! I may have to try Martha's recipe. The frosting as written was okay - but it seemed to off a little from what I've come to expect in cream cheese frosting.
I'm pretty new to SMS - the carrot cake was my 2nd week. Thanks!
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