Carrot Cake

This recipe is a variant, loosely, on the Splendid Spice Cake recipe. With... changes. 

For one thing, I reduced the overall sugar just a touch. And I took the liqud back a bit, to allow for the addition of carrots. I customized the spice blend to favor carrot's innate flavors, which included the addition of just a pinch of cayenne. I also swapped out vanilla for orange blossom water, something you don't have to do if you don't keep that in your pantry. If you do, it's a very subtle but wonderful addition I highly recommend. 

These work nicely as unfrosted muffins, or with cream cheese frosting. I really love the skull cake pan, but be sure to grease and flour it well! 

1/2 c room temperature butter

1/4 c lard

2 c dark brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground mace

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp cardamom

1/4 tsp cloves

1 tsp orange blossom water

1/8 tsp cayenne

3 eggs

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 c grated (packed) carrot

3 c all-purpose flour

1 c milk

1 tsp lemon juice

2 tsp baking powder

Preheat the oven to 350F and grease your pans, or line 18 muffin cups with paper liners.

Cream together the butter, lard, and brown sugar. Cream in the spices and orange blossom water.

Beat in the eggs and baking soda, beat until light and fluffy. Stir the carrots into this.

Alternating, add in one cup of flour, a third of the milk, then flour, until all is combined. Add in the lemon juice, then the baking powder. Once the batter is completely mixed, put into the pans or liners, filling for cupcakes to about 2/3 of the pan/liner.

Bake at 350F for 25-30 min, until a tester comes out cleanly. Move to a rack. Cool completely if you will be frosting these.

Even with the non-stick coating, the skulls look best when greased - I like to use the spray stuff - and lightly floured.

The recipe makes about 24 cupcakes, or 12 cupcakes and 6 skulls, since the skulls are larger than the cupcakes are. If you don't frost them, you can treat them like muffins and they go really well with coffee. Like King Harv's Blanket Fort blend (shameless plug here! I don't get anything from King Harv, but I am part of the Live! from the Blanket Fort team and we're all pretty thrilled about this coffee.) which is a medium roast with personality and great flavor. Just like the podcast... 

For either cupcakes or the skulls, don't overfill. This cake has enough leavening to keep it a light, rich, moist cake. Which is lovely to eat, and does expand! 

Leave some room for the batter to rise.

And of course, I have to pay the cat tax now that I have a kitten! So here's a semi-loaf of Toast.