carrot birthday cake with orange freckles

summer is trying to knock on the door - only on early mornings in Prague; I would say I am rather disappointed with the May weather this year - and it continues beginning of June... which, however doesn't stop me from having celebrations here and there all the time - this post is dedicated to the blog's first anniversary (now a little bit more than a year since Karen from Opening my Mind convinced me to share my recipes in writing) aaand my own 23rd birthday (for that one we had raspberry velvet cake, but I did not get to taking pictures of it).

Carrot cake is the perfect dessert for many occasions - especially on the occasion of being happy with a piece of carrot cake :)

Carrot cake

(in 18cm pan)

Ingredients

for the cake

150g all purpose sifted flour

250g grated carrots

130g dark cane sugar

20g cinnamon sugar

1tsp soda bicarbonate

1tsp baking powder

100g chopped walnuts

150ml sunflower oil

2 eggs

handful of dark chocolate chips

for the frosting

250g cream cheese

125g powder sugar

90g soft butter

orange rind

+

bigger walnut pieces

orange chocolate chips

for decoration :)

Flour, soda bicarbonate, baking powder and cinnamon sugar are mixed well in a big bowl. Then the cane sugar, carrots and 50g of the walnuts are added and stirred into the mixture. Finally the oil and beaten eggs are added too. Then sprinkle a handful of dark choc chips into the dough to make it irresistibly gorgeous :)

The oven is pre-heated to 180C and the baking pan is greased on the walls (and I put a rind of baking paper on the bottom too). Baking takes 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Then we take the cake out, leave it too cool off for 10 minutes, remove from the pan and leave to cool off completely on a metal rack.

While waiting for the cake to cool off, we can prepare the frosting. All ingredients are left out to soften at room temperature for at least two hours before preparation (at least this is my case, since I beat everything by hand and don't have an electric mixer yet). First the butter is beaten by itself until it turns white, cream cheese is added and the mixture is stirred to homogeneity as much as possible; the powder sugar and orange rind are added and then you will have this smooth and flowing cream, but be careful not to make it too liquid (especially if you beat by electric mixer).

putting the cake together:

The carrot layers are cut into two - and we have one layer, half of the cream cheese frosting on top plus the leftover 50g of chopped walnuts. The other layer is pressed on top and covered with the leftover of the cream. Then we decorate with orange chocolate button chips (to resemble summer freckles) and some walnut pieces. The cake is left in the fridge for at least 4-5 hours. Wait if you can! :D

This carrot cake is extremely moist, full of different flavour layers - first you feel cinnamon, then orange, then the frosting - all in all it's a real celebration of the senses. This was my first carrot cake - definitely the first of many to follow :)