Icing = Love

Tuesday was our friend Natalie's birthday. She has, unfortunately, been exiled to France for a 4-month stint, but they let her come visit for a few days. She was really looking forward to spending her birthday among friends, so we decided to provide her favorite cake -- Carrot Cake. Sounds simple enough. If you live on the other side of the planet!! I looked for a week, consulted with various cake afficionados that I know, and I came to the stunning realization that if we were going to serve Carrot Cake on Tuesday night, it was up to me to make it.
Scary! I'm not a cake-maker. Cookies? Yes. Brownies? Mmm-hmm. Cakes? Not so much, no.
So I got all the cookbooks I have and only found 2 C.C. recipes in them. One was the old faithful, everyone-has-one, Better Homes and Gardens red gingham check cook book, and the other was one my mom sent me that is a compilation of recipes from Cooks Magazine. It's a great one, too, because they've tried tons of different versions of each recipe and combined the best of all. So I read the 2 page spread on C.C. in the Cooks mag, and decided (a) they have some really great ideas, and (b) I don't have the patience for all of that faffing about! (=British for "wasting time"). So I took what seemed like the critical "this will make the cake better, and it seems reasonable enough" piece from the Cooks mag book, and proceeded to start shredding the carrots for the BHG recipe.
This was my first cake ever, I think. (Not counting the ones I probably made as a kid that people had to eat because I was a kid and I baked a cake!)
Cakes intimidate me. They're three-dimensional. They take a lot of time. And if you've screwed it up somehow, you don't know it till everyone knows it! (With cookies you get to taste them before you force them on people you love!)
I've put pictures of each stage for your viewing pleasure (and giggle-inducement!) I'm sure some of you have had the same troubles!

Layer 1
See the blobs in the middle? What you are seeing is the bottom of the first layer, and it didn't come out of the pan so easily. I greased and floured and cooled, but it didn't want to dislodge from it's home...that's why this is a 2-layer cake! :o)

Layer 2
I realized as I set out to start making the icing that the vanilla I was planning to use was, um, dried up. Hee hee. No, I don't use vanilla all that often. However, unlike some people I know, I didn't try to substitute vanilla ice cream instead of vanilla extract!

The impossible-to-remove blobs from the top layer are hidden by the icing in the middle. Nice, eh?

Icing Overkill
The recipe said to keep adding powdered sugar until it got to the right consistency. O.M.G. I must have approached 5 cups of sugar! You people that can go to your corner supermarket and buy a tub of Pillsbury Cream Cheese Frosting are so lucky!! I envy you. Can you see how much frosting I have left over? I still had to do the sides, but there was still a lot left over!

At about this point I had to break for my first big stretch. My spatula-hand was cramping and my muscles ached from all the tension!

Finished!
Whew! Two breaks later, it looks almost official, huh? :o) I've learned that icing is a wonderful picture for love because both cover a multitude of sins (1Peter 4:8)

Now I had to figure out how to get it to our friend's house without destroying it! I don't have one of those Tupperware Cake Carry-all thingies that most married women I know have! But I made it work...nothing a little duct tape couldn't handle!

The Birthday Girl
Here she is, posing with her slice of birthday cake and her fiancé.

Here's the recipe. I'm sorry that it looks like the recipe was printed on a beach ball, but I can't figure out how to post anything other than a photograph to Blogger with the technology I have and know how to use. :o) You should be able to click on the image and it will open in another screen, then you can print it or "Save As..." directly from this image. If that doesn't work, let me know and I'll email you a copy!

Happy Birthday Natalie!