Guess what kind of cake my son wants for his 9th birthday today?

REC: Chocolate Carrot Cake.....hope this fits the bill...

Chocolate Carrot Cake

Serving Size : 12

3 ounces Semisweet Chocolate -- or unsweetened, melted and cooled
3/4 cup Unsalted Butter -- room temperature
2 cups light brown sugar
3 Large Eggs -- room temperature
2 Teaspoons vanilla
Zest of One Orange -- finely grated
1/2 cup orange juice
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 Teaspoons baking powder
1 Teaspoon baking soda
1 Teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups finely shredded carrots
1 cup Chocolate Chips -- (optional)
1 cup Finely Chopped Walnuts -- toasted
Icing:
8 Ounces Cream Cheese -- room temperature
3 Ounces Unsweetened Chocolate -- melted and cooled
1 tablespoon Unsalted Butter -- solftened
1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
2 teaspoons Finely Minced Orange Zest
Orange Juice -- as needed, to thin
Garnish:
Marzipan Carrots -- (commercial)
crushed toasted walnuts
shredded fresh carrots

For cake, preheat oven to 350 F. Generously grease a 9 or l0 inch spring-form pan and line with parchment paper or greased wax paper.

Melt the chocolate and set aside.

Meanwhile, cream the butter until light and fluffy. Add brown sugar. Blend in eggs, vanilla, melted (and cooled) chocolate, orange zest and orange juice, scraping bowl often to incorporate mixture.

In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, soda and cinnamon. Stir this into wet batter to moisten slightly. Fold in carrots, chocolate chips (optional) and nuts and stir to make a smooth batter. Spoon into prepared pan.

Bake until cake tests done - 50 to 60 minutes.

Icing:
Melt the chocolate and cool. Cream the cream cheese and stir in the chocolate, butter, confectioner's sugar and orange zest and juice. Whip to increase volume.

To ice cake:
Split cooled cake horizontally. Ice bottom generously and cover with top. Ice sides and coat with crushed toasted walnuts. Ice top and garnish with additional walnuts and a center of shredded carrots or arrange a perimeter of marzipan carrots around edges.

 
Hey Mimi, all European cocoa powder is Dutch Processed. There may an exception somewhere, but

I've never heard of it. The cocoa won't indicate that it's Dutched on the label, since it's the norm in Europe,(just as natural cocoa is the norm in the U.S), but if you look at the ingredients, it will probably say cocoa and alkali. Anyway, if you can find cocoa powder from France, Italy, Holland, Germany, etc., you'll be set.

If for some reason you can't find Dutched cocoa nearby , another thing you can do is add a little instant espresso (or coffee) to the cake batter, which will produce a darker cake (plus it will enhance and deepen the flavor of the chocolate).

 
Here's what I ended up with

I decided that I needed the batters to have similar textures and obviously would need to cook at the same temp for the same amount of time so...

I used the carrot cake recipe from the Cake Bible which I somehow found online:

2 cups finely shredded carrots
1/4 cup lemon juice (I used orange)
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 cup sifted cake flour (I used all whole wheat)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 large eggs
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup honey

and for the chocolate I used the one in the link, with the following tweaks: a full cup of cocoa, whole wheat flour, 1 1/4 cup sugar (I used Sucanat but any sugar will be the same), about a cup of semisweet chips added at the end. I was way too tired at this point, so I melted the butter and mixed with the eggs, milk and half of a vanilla bean scrapings. I did nothing more than dump the dry into the wet and mix well. I must say this must be the best chocolate cake I've ever had. Buttery, with a depth and strength of chocolate flavour right up there with a good brownie but very light textured. I usually pretty much despise the outside of a chocolate cake as it is dry and has less flavour, but this one is more chocolatey, and when cool it is almost crispy, and super tender.

Spent way too long making perfect foil dividers for pouring the strips of batter in, then removed and discarded. I had MUCH too much batter lol, so I made about a hundred mini cupcakes. Can't find my regular sized cupcake/muffin tins. They'll be good in the freezer, especially the chocolate ones which are like a perfect hit when I just want some chocolate. HMMM maybe that's why this post is so long? haha

After all that? Poor guy has to wait till tomorrow to have the cake, it's still cooling. I estimate midnight before it can be frosted and he has to go to school tomorrow. Sigh. I blame my car. Came out of the shop today and still won't start reliably. I got stuck at the park, then at the grocery store. Good thing my partner is a tow truck driver or I'd be broke just getting the thing to run lol.

http://baking.about.com/library/recipes/blcelebrate.htm

 
This is the next special occasion cake I'm making.......

Is yours out of the oven yet, Meryl? smileys/smile.gif

 
Well, I seem to have muddied this up lol

I've been doing that all day. The chocolate chips were only in the chocolate batter. The batters were not combined, and I made dividers out of foil to keep the batters separate.

I put three dividers in an 8"x8" cake pan so that there were four sections. Then I spooned chocolate batter in the first and third sections, carrot batter in the other (alternate) sections so that there were stripes. Then I carefully removed the dividers and baked the cake. The sections didn't seep together because they had similarly thick consistencies.

Also, although I would love a fudgy frosting, he wants cream cheese so that is what it shall be smileys/smile.gif

 
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