Carrot Cake

So, Anna asked my to make her and Jessie's wedding cake. Now I am a pie and cookie kind of gal, so the idea of baking and transporting a cake to northern Wisconsin has my spatula shaking. It's true though, I love a challenge. Today is the day - the test cake is in the oven, my kitchen smells like warm cinnamon and brown sugar.

For starters I have my Aunt Annette's carrot cake recipe. Carrots, pineapple, walnuts, coconut - it must be good. Next, I do have a history or decorating layer cakes with wildflowers (kept alive in little plastic test tubes) and they always look great. For an adventure the test cake is in layers, I bought a special cake frosting knife (cream cheese of course) and decorating fondant to try my hand at swirls around the wildflowers.

But first a word about Annette. She is my dads younger sister. As I child I remember her nursing her babies and my Uncle Bob sitting next to her with his arm around her (nice!) She studied nursing and raised six kids. And baked carrot cake. Annette died in far too young of leukemia but her memory and cake lives on.

Carrot Cake (I modified Annette's recipe to use half brown sugar and increased the eggs and cinnamon here.)

1 cup brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 cup canola oil
1 tsp salt
2 tsp soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 cup crushed pineapple (crush fresh in food processor)
2 cups grated carrots
1 cup unsweetened coconut
1 cup chopped walnuts
2 cups flour

Mix sugars, oils and eggs and then all other ingredients except flour. Finally add flour and stir by hand until blended. Line two 9 inch cake pans with parchment and spray edges. Bake 30-40 minutes until knife comes out clean. Cool on wire rack.

Cream Cheese Frosting

4 cup powdered sugar
16 oz cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
4 tbsp vanilla

Stay tuned, I'll post a photo of the test cake.