Carrot Cake. (May 2001)

This was a time-consuming but fun cake to make. I wish I could take credit for the idea, but it came from a great book Dan gave me called "Wacky Cakes & Kooky Cookies" by Gerhard Jenne. It took 2-3 days total, but I could have done it in one if I'd stayed home from work and put my mind to it. I made the marzipan from scratch, which is something nobody in their right mind would normally do because it's so easy--although a little more expensive--just to buy it off the shelf. Then, the next day I made the carrots. I added some orange food coloring and also some orange extract, which does wonders for the marzipan IMHO. I made the eye sockets and mouths with plastic marzipan/gum paste tools I bought at Fantes when i took my gum paste class. Then, the day after that (yesterday) I made the eyes out of white and black royal icing. The "hair" is green royal icing.

The cake itself is my sister's secret carrot cake recipe, which by all accounts is stupendously delicious. This is the first time I baked it in a 12x18 sheet pan, and I was glad to see that the recipe made *just* enough batter for the pan. The frosting is just sugar, butter, cream cheese, and vanilla.

I took the cake into work on May 31. It was very popular. People who never even say hello to me came up to me and said, "Dave! Great cake!" which is always nice. :)

Problems: Amazingly enough, I didn't really have any problems with this cake. This is the first time I'd baked it on a 12x18 pan, so I think I overcooked it by about 60 seconds or so, but on the whole it turned out pretty great.