Easter Carrot Cake

To celebrate Easter, I tried (and i mean really really tried) to bake Easter cookies because I'd seen hundreds of jaw-dropping, mouth-watering Easter cookie decoration all over other people's blogs, and here I thought, hey why not? I would like to give it a shot. Easter cookies are cute, adorable, and most of all, you can give them to friends and family to celebrate Easter.

So, I did and I did terribly, i gave up. I don't know if it's the lack of proper equipment, lack of patience, or both that made all my Easter egg cookies looked like they came out from the grasp of cookie monster (okay, maybe i exaggerated a little bit). All I can say is they were not blog-picture worthy. One good thing though, they tasted great, even without the Royal Icing on. However, I promise to improve on my cookie decorating skill and that will be my half-year's resolution.

Anyhow, since I failed terribly on the cookies, I decided to bake a cake. There's a carrot cake recipe that I have been wanting to try and I think: Easter = Easter bunny = carrot cake. They are very moist and exactly how i want my carrot cake to be. For the decoration, I've been wanting to learn to use buttercream frosting, so when I looked at this beautiful Hydrangea cake from I am Baker, I knew I got to try making them. You can see the tutorial here. Enjoy!

Hydrangea Carrot Cake

Ingredients :
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
3 cups grated carrot
1 cup chopped pecan

Cream Cheese filling:
1/2 cup butter, softened
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
4 cups confectioner sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped pecans ( I omitted this)

Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C). Grease and flour your pan, I use 2 8-inch round pans, you can use 9x13 inch or cupcake, but to make it bouquet-like, I used round pans so I can carved them later on.

In a large bowl, beat together eggs, white and brown sugar, and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. Mix in flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Stir in carrots, fold in pecans. Pour into prepared pans.

Bake in the preheated ovens for 40 - 50 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack and cool completely.

To make frosting: In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese until well blended. Add confectioner sugars 1 cup at a time. Finally add in vanilla extract. Beat until smooth and creamy.

Resource : slightly adapted from allrecipes


As you can see, I need to improve my piping skill, and holding the tip backward doesn't help it at all. My hubby still loves the look of the cake and most important of all, it tasted great. Hmm..another thing to put on my to-do list : Improve my piping skill.