That looks and sound soooo good!

But, it's all gone now
And for the one I'm making in September, I doubt if my GF will want to share

Do you have a trick to get the sides so well crusted with nuts? I seem to always have trouble with that, and yours looks so good.

I have a delicious chocolate orange carrot cake that I like to bake. It has a chocolate frosting, instead of cream cheese.

is to hold the cake with one hand (it's on cardboard from a former cake 'round') and over the bowl with the chopped nuts. Grab a handful, and press from the bottom up. You may have to go up the side in increments, and then from the front to the back the same way.

I still had about half a cup of chopped nuts leftover. I did get some frosting on my hand or fingers from time to time, but you just have to ignore that until finished.

One trick I did do for both getting the frosted cake into my hand at all and then back to the platter was to use my offset spatula to lower it. It's pretty strong, so I didn't fear bending or breaking it. I think it's a Dexter brand, probably bought in a restaurant supply store, like AceMart.

And I've got a decent-quality cake-carrier, though I still put a piece of looped-back tape underneath to keep it from slipping during transport. If you don't have a carrier, tape it to a larger cake round in a delivery box (the thin cardboard fold-up kind bakeries use.) And if you don't have to take it somewhere, don't worry about any of that

Would you be able to post your carrot cake recipe? Or what it is that makes it chocolate-orange? That is always a great combination

Or is it flat on the counter while applying the nuts?

I will look for my recipe tomorrow. It's late. But what makes it chocolate orange is basically cocoa powder in the batter, and chopped up canned mandarin oranges added with the carrots. And the frosting is whipped chocolate ganache. It's very good, and loaded with calories. I like to dry a few of the mandarin slices whole, and drizzle them with melted chocolate to decorate the top, in addition to trying to apply nuts to the sides.

I have a strange weakness for cake carriers, I probably have 8-10 different ones. My daughter gave me a cupcake carrier shaped like a cupcake. Transporting a cake without a proper carrier is a real drag.

but have used bakery boxes in the past without problems. There's a great shop here in town that sells nothing but cake-making and -transporting supplies. It's where I get my cake rounds. I'll be looked at their rectangular pieces next time so I don't have to ruin a round to make one for this cake.

Your variation sounds wonderful, and I may have to try it some time. I'll add it to my recipe here as a variation.

Another thing to try in place of the dried mandarins is candied orange peels. I just watched a pretty good show on the Cooking channel (I haven't watch such shows in a while) that's just on sweets. I think it's called "Sweet Julia" and in her debut episode she made candied orange peels differently than the recipes I've used in the past. I'll have to transcribe it or find a youtube clip and post it soon

Yes, I do hold the cake in my hand. The baking book has some nice drawings indicating that part, but I don't have a scanner to post them. Any cake where I have to decorate the sides whether with ganache, frosting, and/or chopped nuts, I assemble it on a cardboard round or rectangle/square. The kind of cardboard made just for that purpose is much stiffer than what you'll find in your typical cardboard box, but you can use that stuff as well. Just be aware it may not be strong enough. In which case, use two layers with the corrugations angled across the other (so that if one layer folds, the other doesn't.)

I have some assembly images I didn't post before, so I'll paste them in here for you to see


First layer with cardboard support



4th (and last) layer before final frosting



Let me know if you need any further help with this

Personally, I'll stick to a sheet cake. But whether as a layer cake or sheet cake, I do love a good carrot cake.

If you try it, and then leave it as a sheet cake, I'd think it would still be just as delicious. Plus you'd be able to put more nuts into the cake recipe. I did anyway, but they were crushed walnuts, so I'd have no trouble cutting the rectangles.

This Cook's Illustrated Baking Book is going to be a favorite of mine, I know that much!

I have adapted to high altitude because I live at 7,000 feet above sea level, in Santa Fe, NM.

I can say that most people get it wrong about the high altitude adjustment, including some professionals I know. It's not hard: reduce the leavening by half. Leave the sugar alone. Increase liquid slightly, which can be done by using larger eggs. Also, add slightly more of the shortening. Reduce the flour by about a tablespoon per cup. The problem with these adjustments is that they're slightly tricky to quantify into exact amounts, and most publishers of recipes want very simple measurements: one cup, one half cup, one teaspoon, one half teaspoon, and so on. It's only in older recipes that you'll find a third of a cup or some such slightly oddball measurement. As a consequence, I've learned that the older recipes are much better, and are actually easier to adjust to high altitude.

The other complaint I have about most high altitude adjustments is that they call for more flour. Excuse me, but we're already in a dry place. You do not want to do anything that makes the resulting product drier. I'm driven crazy by the grocery stores here, even Sprouts and Whole Foods, because apparently they follow the conventional "add more flour" wisdom, and as a consequence the breads they bake are stale a few hours later. It's criminal, because it's not that hard and they get it wrong.

due to CI adding more baking powder as a means of softening the carrot shreds.

Post a pic of your cake some time, and the recipe. I don't know if my brother and his wife like carrot cake, but they do live at a relatively higher altitude in Fort Collins

it never looks very pretty, even when it's quite tasty.

I have never had my shredded carrots need additional softening.

I know I've made some stuff that didn't look as good as it tasted, so I understand

The reasoning given in the beginning of the recipe said they did that due to the thinness of the cake, having made sheet cakes without as much and the shreds didn't soften much. Now, the baking time affects that, and this one is only in the oven no more than 18 minutes. If you're cooking yours longer, then that's probably why you wouldn't need something else to help them soften. Plus, these are coarse-shreds, so thinner shreds would soften better, too.

CI is good at figuring out the science of this kind of thing. Maybe you could send them your tips on high-altitude baking of carrot sheet cake

Carrot Cake

4 eggs 3 cups grated carrots
1 ¼ cups vegetable oil 1 cup chopped pecans
2 cups white sugar 2 ½ teaspoons vanilla
2 cups less 2 tablespoons flour ½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9x13 pan.

In a large bowl beat together the eggs, oil, sugar, and vanilla. Mix in dry ingredients. Stir in carrots and pecans. Pour into pan. Bake 40-50 minutes. Then let cool for at least a half hour.

Frosting: ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
8 oz cream cheese, softened. Use regular, not whipped or low fat.
4 cups confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans
In a bowl combine the butter, cream cheese, sugar and vanilla. Beat until smooth and creamy, then add the chopped pecans. Frost the cake.

The recipe I printed out tells you to grease and flour the pan, so that after it's cooled you can take it out of the pan to frost. I just lightly grease the pan with Crisco, and leave the cake in the pan. I have already made the high altitude adjustments, so if you want to try this at lower altitude double the baking powder and soda, put the flour back up to two full cups, and reduce the vanilla by a quarter teaspoon in the cake recipe. At high altitude a little more flavoring needs to be added, and I don't know why.

I've never had to bake anything for high-altitude, so it's interesting to see the amounts

Plus, now I see what you mean by a "sheet pan." I don't know the classic name for a 9x13" pan, other than by its dimensions. Whereas, I have two half-sheet pans, measuring 13x18" and maybe 3/4" deep. Something like this:




producing the carrot cake like this:




Now, that same book has a recipe on the following page for a 9x13" cake, so I'll have a look and see how it compares to yours, minus the adjustments. If it looks like something you might want to try, or just read, I'll transcribe it for you

And never, never, never bake cookies on a totally flat pan. The low sides of a cookie sheet are necessary to keep in the right amount of heat to keep the cookie dough from spreading all over.

I use a 9x13 pan with two inch sides. At high altitude if you baked a really thin cake I think it would come out very crunchy because it would dry out terribly.

Also, I often substitute brown sugar for white in a lot of what I bake.

This is the second time in my life I've lived and baked at high altitude. The previous time was in Boulder, which is only 6,000 feet. The thousand feet higher I am here in Santa Fe actually makes a difference. A slight one, but I'm VERY OCD about all of my recipes.

I use them for cookies or sheet-cakes like this one. Basically, it's the same kind of pan you would use to make a typical jelly roll cake. It must be shallow to allow you to roll the final product.

Under "Essential Bakeware" here's what CI has to say about this kind of pan:

or any other very thin cake like that.

I do know things bake very differently in metal as compared to in Pyrex. I make my brownies in a pyrex pan, for instance. Cakes in the metal pan.

Which is why I need to get some metal square/rectangular pans. I have plenty of round metal pans. I'll have a look when I'm at a local cake-making supply business tomorrow

The only times I've made a jelly roll was in school and at one bakery where I worked for a year. We did a lot of thin cakes there using no more than metal cake rings on the black-metal sheet pans (they had a carbon coating on fairly thick steel, and it acted like a non-stick coating.) I was always amazed at how the batter stayed in the rings and didn't seep under them.

Let us know if you try it

you wouldn't have as much yummy goodness on the edges! Looks delicious!

so that the "yummy goodness" wouldn't be too much for one person

I cut it about 2-3" back, then in half, and then angled cuts from each corner. The sliced and plated pieces are the result of that cutting technique

That is my favorite dessert, and I don't eat sweets often, but that looks like HEAVEN!

Would you hold it against me if I pointed out the window and said "Look at that!" and ran off with that divine dessert?

I'm thinking of all the great things I can make when the kitchen is renovated (long story, summer project going on, ending with that).

Man, this is it. I'll actually look forward to it in the early fall.

THANK YOU!

Post pics of your new kitchen (and the cake) when you're done