Wednesday, November 5, 2008

A Carrot cake and some celebrations

Today Mr. Barack Obama has been elected as the 44th President of USA. So I am dedicating this posting for his Victory.
Coming back to our carrot cake,
As soon as we arrived here ,hubby and myself decided to taste all the cakes of USA :)
We started with this carrot cake and our journey towards this carrot cake aisle has now become a non stop one.
Then I gathered some courage and tried baking one carrot cake for our wedding day.
As a trial version I baked one carrot cake two days before and got succeeded .Immediately we shared with friends and finished it off :)
Then I became more confident and baked another one with icing also.
This is my trial piece in icing , so kindly bear with my icing :)
Usually in bakeries , they start the mixture from the All purpose flour. But I have simplified the original recipe by using a cake mix ( Bakers' choice brand - moist white cake mix).
Almost all carrot cakes are decorated with the image of a carrot . But I have tried making some orange color flowers.
Mostly American carrot cakes are decorated with cream cheese icing . But I used butter cream icing.
You can use ready made icing too.


Ingredients:
Any brand 'moist white' cake mix - 1/2 of 1 lb pack.
water - 1/2 cup (half of the amount said in the pack, as the carrot , pineapple will release some water)
Powdered cinnamon - 2 tsp
vegetable oil - 1/3 cup
egg - 1
cocoa powder - 1 tsp
orange peels - 2 tbsp
vanilla extract - 1 tsp
shredded carrots - 1 cup
Shredded coconuut - 1/2 cup
chopped walnuts - 1/2 cup
crushed pineapple in can (drained)- 1/2 of a 8 oz can.

For Butter cream icing:

Unsalted butter - 1/2 bar (5 tbsp)
confectionary sugar - 2 cups
milk - 1 tbsp
vanilla essence - 1 tsp
Food colors like orange , yellow and green

Method:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan.
Mix water, oil, eggs and vanilla using in a blender / mixie.
Add cake mix flour, cinnamon and run the mixer again to get a smooth batter.
Pour the batter to a broad bowl.
Add the carrots, coconut, walnuts and pineapple and mix well with a spoon.
Pour into a round pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 - 40 minutes..
Allow to cool and turn it upside down.

Frosting:
Mix softened butter with confectionary sugar, milk and vanilla essence.
This can be of a thick conssistency like a murukku flour.
Keep 1/2 cup icing separate , to add color.
Spread the white icing uniformly all over the cake by using a knife or icing tool.
Mix colors to the remaining icing .
Then decorate the cake with color icing using the icing cone.
If you do not have an icing cone then fill the colors to small zip lock covers , cut a small opening at a corner and decorate the cake.
The ultimate carrot cake is ready!

Note: The above said quantity is enough to make one round cake of 2 inch height.
So , double the quantity to bake 2 rounds .
Adding 2 tbsp of chocolate cake mix will enhance the taste.
Adding orange juice instead of water will make the cake more flavorful.


Serving suggestions:

Refrigerate the cake and serve chill as dessert.
The quantity given above is enough to make one round cake and a heart shaped cup cake.

I am sending this recipe to JFI : Carrots hosted at The cooker

From scratch:
350 deg F , 30 - 35 min, Two rectangular pan.

3 cups shredded carrots
1 cups cooking oil
2 cup sugars
2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
4 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon

16 comments:

Unknown said...

wow nie cake dear looks so yummy amd thanks for u r lovely comments in my blog keep visiting

Cham said...

Noone will tell it is ur first trial for frosting, not bad at all :) Why don't you send this cake to the Jhiva event which is carrot.It is just looking delicious.
Check here:http://the-cooker.blogspot.com/2008/11/im-late-im-late-jfi-december-carrots.html

Shama Nagarajan said...

hai nice entry........a gift for you...check out this link...http://easy2cookrecipes.blogspot.com/2008/11/oats-upma.html

Jaishree Iyer said...

Wow ! carrot cake looks delicious& yum..nice entry.

Malar Gandhi said...

Wow....Looks great to me....can I have a bite?

Yasmeen said...

Sweet dedication to the new president:). I made that cake on my son's first birthday,carrot cake was even my first favorite in US:)

Ramya Vijaykumar said...

Hey this doesnt look like your trial cake the cake has turned out really well and congrats on your wedding aniv...

Usha said...

I love carrot cake and yours looks delicious...

Gita Jaishankar said...

Wow, way to go viki, the cake looks delicious, the frosting looks very good dear :)

jayasree said...

It dusn't look like first time frosting. Has come out well. I bake eggless carrot cake. Liked the idea of adding shredded coconut to the batter.

Thanks for dropping by my blog and in turn got to know abt urs.

Purva Desai said...

I love Carrot Cake....I guess the whole World is crazy after Obama's Victory, I hope he lives up to ppl's expectation...
The icing also looks awesome...
Congrats on receiving well deserved award....

Sagari said...

beautiful looking cake

TheCooker said...

So colourful!
Is this really your first attempt at decorating a cake. Can't tell :)

Thanks for the entry.

Laavanya said...

Carrot cake is my husband's favorite... looks pretty.

Unknown said...

cake looks really cute..lovely colours..

Anonymous said...

I always tried the cake with the cream available in stores,would really love to try with fresh cream.It looks awesome!!!!!

Chow chow Paruppu koottu and peel thogayal

Chow chow / Bangalore Kathirikai / Chayote  A dal curry paruppu koottu with chow chow and a spicy chutney using it's peel (chow chow tho...