Carrot Cake

I didn't use up all of my cream cheese icing on the gingerbread cupcakes so felt the need to use it on something else. I figure the most obvious candidates for cream cheese topping are banana cake or carrot cake. It was with some horror, though, that I realised I didn't have a go-to carrot cake recipe at hand, and decided I must remedy that!

I don't know why I like photos of freshly grated stuff. Just do. It looks new, bright.... something.


Layer cake! I used a recipe for "Most Wonderful Carrot Cake" from justapinch and just added my own already-made icing (see previous post). The recipe said to use 9 inch pans, but my only matching set is 10 inches... and I've had too many experiences of unevenly sized cake layers, so 10 inches it was!

First layer "plastered."

And second layer on. Size matching success = win.

I opted not to ice around the sides because it tends to just get messy and drip everywhere any time I try that sort of thing. I also kind of like being able to see the middle layer of icing peeking out.


The recipe said it was "very important to serve this cake at room temperature." But, dear recipe, I must disagree with you. I had my first piece at room temperature, and then another piece the following day out of the fridge (it just doesn't feel right leaving cream cheese out in the heat to melt...) and I say the cold one was better. Awesome even. How I wish there was some left!

Gingerbread Cupcakes

Gingerbread sounds like it should involve cookies, but it turns out it's just fine as a cake flavour too.

My friend Rachael picked these out of my copy of Betty Crocker's Big Book of Cupcakes for me to make. So it's rather a pity that she wasn't around to try them... Next time hey, Rach? (We can say this was a practice run.)

Cream cheese icing ingredients, complete with cinnamon, ground ginger and mixed spice...

Most interesting icing ingredient: lemon rind. It works suprisingly well!

You can find the recipe for these cupcakes here, on Betty Crocker's website. But pay no attention to the photo - cream cheese icing does NOT sit that neat and firm in Queensland summer heat! It looked sloppy when I piped it with the open tip so I ended up just spreading it on.

Review from Jess:

Hint of lemon in the icing - brilliant. The base wasn't very gingery, but was still deliciously soft and moist.

Review from Bec:

Jess has said everything I had to say.