Carrot Cake

I couldn't decide what to bring to a potluck barbecue at South Beach, so I flipped through Moosewood looking for something new to try. Much to Mike's disapproval, I settled on the carrot cake, which he doesn't consider dessert. But it looked easy to make and easy to transport, so that was that. More importantly, though, I was hoping it would be easy to foist off on others since the recipe claimed that it served 12 to 16 (which turned out to be quite an understatement).

When mixing the batter, I generously mounded my teaspoons of cinnamon and allspice. I also opted to add shredded coconut to the mixture. I smoothed the very thick batter into a 9 by 13 pan and hoped that I hadn't accidentally added too much flour. It took much longer than 35 minutes to bake; the middle was quite soupy at 35 minutes, so I just kept adding five minutes until it had cooked for nearly an hour.

The recipe didn't include a frosting or topping, and it seemed sort of naked and incomplete, so I found this Ginger-Cream Cheese Icing recipe on Epicurious to mix up for the top. It wasn't super thick -- if I'd had more cream cheese, I would have used it to thicken the frosting up a bit. The sweet-gingery flavor complemented the spiced cake nicely. People seemed to enjoy the cake, and, as Mike was carrying it back to the car, someone stopped him and asked for "just one more piece" before he took the remainder back home.