Carrot cake might not be a standout if it wasn’t for the
cream cheese frosting that graces its top and separates its
layers.
The more layers a carrot cake has, the more surfaces you can
decorate with frosting. So when your roommate’s birthday
rolls around, an oozing three-layer monstrosity seems to be in
order.
The cake itself has to be densely nutty and spicy so it can hold
its own against sweet cream cheese, but there’s no point in
grating carrots before you’re sure you can get the frosting
right.
Let two eight-ounce packages of cream cheese and a stick of
unsalted butter sit on your counter until they reach room
temperature. Take a nap ““ by the time you get up, everything
will be ready for you to begin.
But when you waltz back into the kitchen an hour later, things
are not as you left them.
The ingredients are gone, and your roommate is perched on the
counter, stirring a bowl and intermittently licking a spoon.
Did the frosting make itself? Your mom had said it would be a
complicated procedure involving an electric mixer and vast amounts
of patience. Last you checked, your roommate had neither. Is this
some kind of birthday miracle?
“Don’t look so confused,” snickers your
roommate, offering you a lick from the spoon. “You make
everything so much more complicated than it has to be.”
Gingerly dip your finger into the bowl as he describes how the
second you left the apartment, he put the cream cheese and butter
into the microwave for thirty seconds, added two cups of powdered
sugar, stirred until the lumps disappeared and threw in a cup of
sweetened coconut flakes.
You’re still not sure how he learned this, but he’s
dead on. He wanders away, spoon in mouth.
Throw together the batter:
Mix two cups of sugar with half a cup of applesauce and a cup of
oil. Blend in four eggs, one at a time. Add two cups of flour, two
teaspoons each of baking powder and baking soda, and a teaspoon
each of cinnamon and nutmeg. Add three cups of grated carrots, a
cup of raisins, and half a cup of chopped walnuts.
Rub your sore arm ““ your roommate better appreciate
this.
You could grease three nine-inch cake pans, line the bottoms of
the pans with carefully cut circles of wax paper, grease the wax
paper, divide the cake batter evenly between the pans, bake the
layers for 40 to 45 minutes, let them cool in the pans for 15
minutes, take them out of the pans and let them cool on a wire rack
for an hour (make sure you pull the wax paper off), sandwich the
layers together with frosting and spread the remaining frosting
over the entire cake to produce a shining white monolith of carroty
goodness. Whew, take a breath.
But that’s so much work.
Why did you think it would be a good idea to spend two hours
putting a cake together?
Your roommate gives you an easy out: “No time, dude, no
time! I’m going out drinking with my friends in an hour and a
half, and you’re coming too whether that cake’s done or
not.”
His birthday, his rules. Stop messing around with layers; the
frosting is the best part anyway.
Pour the batter into cupcake tins and bake them at 325 degrees
for 15 to 20 minutes.
The second the cupcakes are out of the oven, your roommate
shoves one in his mouth and follows it with a wad of frosting.
“Mmum whw hghh!” he beams.
That’s definitely a good sign.
E-mail Raab at lraab@media.ucla.edu.