This was a day of self discovery. My favorite kind of pie is pumpkin. My favorite kind of cookies are Lebkuchen. I'd be lying if I claimed that anything other than chocolate could claim the top spot in the cake category, but I've long lusted after carrot cake. It only took me twenty some years to realize that I'm a nut for nutmeg, a man for all cinnamon, and... hrm... I like ginger!
In addition to that discovery, I found out that I'm a bit of an oddity in the carrot cake realm. I don't really remember if it was frosted growing up (though I'm sure it probably was), because frankly frosting doesn't taste of cin-eg-ger, so why bother? Also, it's apparently a subject of great passion (for Amy at least) that carrot cake must contain nuts and raisins. Again; just leave me in a room with the spices. Something I've also heard is pineapple. I'm still a bit baffled by that.In any event, I decided to use Orangette's Carrot Cake recipe, since she's never let me down yet. I halved the recipe, and added the raisins, lest I face the wrath of Amy. I also decided to do a square cake, since we don't really have more than one round cake pan. I thought I might just bake off one 9x13 dish of carrot cake, slice it in half, and then fold it over upon itself.
What I was not counting on was how much of a culinary success this cake would be! It really is one of the most moist cakes I've ever eaten, let alone produced. Unfortunately, this made it all but impossible to manuver, and I wound up with a large hole in the center of my cake (you know, where the cake should be). Compounding matters, I'm afraid none of the pictures really turned out too well at all. Finally, as if to rub salt in an open wound, Amy made and beautifully frosted a "plated-parfait" from the scraps. And the pictures of the parfait actually turned out!
