Guess the Decorator

Autumn baking is in full swing. We did go apple picking the other day and got a peck of Cortlands. I've used six apples so far to make two batches of apple cake and, since I have plenty of applesauce, will likely make apple pie filling in the next day or so. Today, however, was for carrot cake!

After work I got all the ingredients together to make this recipe for carrot cake. Even with splitting my farm share I have an overabundance of carrots and this recipe used about eight of them to make the three cups of shredded carrots. I mixed up the batter without any nuts and dished out three of the small loaves before adding 1/2 cup of chopped black walnuts and dishing out the other three loaves. This also uses up all my black walnuts and I probably missed the season this year to forage more, but that's OK. I'll get more next year for sure! And, for the record, they required 35 minutes at 350˚F.

When it came time to decorate the loaves, the youngerchild and I had some differing visions. First the loaves were frosted with the cream cheese frosting from the recipe for the cake. Then I made a quick buttercream with 1/2 cup shortening, 1+1/3 cup powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla and a few tablespoons of heavy cream to get the texture right and then tinted the buttercream in orange and green. I decorated the cakes containing the walnuts and the youngerchild worked on the other three.

For dessert we dug into the one with the largest glob of orange frosting, the one in the top middle of the picture. And it truly is a moist, delicious cake!