Easter Egg Carrot Cake

It's almost Easter! This year we decided to make large Easter cakes, made with carrot cake. Our carrot cake is super moist and delicious containing, pineapple, carrots, rum raisins, toasted walnuts, and filled with cream cheese icing, not too sweet, just perfect. We decorated the cake with fondant and a gum paste bow. A beautifully festive cake for a family occasion.

Carrot cake for an 8" cake pan:

In a large mixing bowl add:

2 eggs

3/4C dark brown sugar

3/4C oil

1t vanilla extract. With a whisk, mix until combined briefly.

Add: 1C whole wheat flour

1/2t baking powder

1/2t baking soda

1/2t salt

1t ground cinnamon

1/2t ground ginger. Mix till smooth.

Fold in at the end:

2C peeled, shredded carrots

1/2C toasted, roughly chopped walnuts

1/2 raisins, soaked in 1/8C dark rum and heated briefly in a pan for them to absorb (optional)

1/2C drained chopped pineapple (canned or fresh, chop it in a food processor, or buy it shredded)

Mix it all together, and pour it in to a greased 8" cake pan. Make sure there is parchment paper at the bottom of the pan, or it will not come out. Bake at 350F for about 45 minutes-60. With a skewer check that it comes out clean, but don't over bake. Cool fully. Then cut the edges of the cake making it oval in shape. On top of that put a layer of cream cheese icing (recipe below), then put the cut edges on top of the icing, making the cake a 3D egg shape. Then cover the whole cake with icing. It will be flakey, so apply gently. Try to cover all the nuts and raisins, since they will show through the fondant.

Cream cheese icing:

Cream 2 sticks soft unsalted butter with

2t vanilla extract

add 1C confectioner's sugar till smooth, 

then add 16oz (2C) spreadable cream cheese, mix till smooth. Apply.

We used bought fondant and gum paste for the egg design. Always try to roll the fondant as thin as you can, 18" is good. The thinner it is the better it looks. Always roll it with sifted powdered sugar.

The carrot cake was baked in an 8" cake pan, then the edges were cut to make the cake oval, and the sides were placed on top of the cake to form an egg shape. Then it was covered with cream cheeses icing.

The bow laces were pinched together and placed around a thick bottle, then left to dry for a few hours to harden.

Fondant was placed over the cream cheese icing, and some silk leaves were placed under the cake as decoration.

The finished Easter egg cake with a festive bow.

Here you can see the carrot cake with the cream cheese icing. Shredded pineapple was added, as well as raisins soaked in dark rum, and toasted walnuts.