Mike's Birthday Cake

So my new thing is taking recipes I've been baking for a while and making them much smaller. Earlier this week my first attempt was a small yellow cake with chocolate frosting for Casey's birthday. Alot of that frosting ended up in my stomach and not on the cake, so my new rule is to make the frosting AFTER the cake is done baking, not during, its too tempting.

Mike wanted carrot cake for his birthday and even though Mike's standard like every I time I bake it is "I could eat this everyday for the rest of my life," there is no way that Mike & I could eat a whole carrot cake by ourselves. I was nervous to try to scale this cake down in size because it has alot of ingredients that needed to be recalculated (what is 1/2 or 1/4 of 3 eggs???), but it tasted exactly the same as my regular size carrot cakes.




The other thing I want to start doing is decorating. I never have labored under the impression that something needs to be pretty to taste good, but when I bake for events like birthdays or showers, decoration seems requisite.... hence the RED cream cheese frosting on Mike's cake... the intent was to frost the cake with the regular frosting and dye the extra red to use for decorating. The dying part worked according to plan... the decorating part did not. I got through the "Hap" and the bag ripped open and the red dyed frosting oozed over the entire cake. So I ran with it and just made the whole thing red (which looks kind of freaky on a carrot cake). Now I know to use a thicker bag - you live, you learn. And in an attempt to personalize the cake I tried to make an "M" for Mike in the middle using sprinkles... again, not my best effort.

I originally thought it would make a cake that would have 4 large pieces, but the cake was actually 6 really large pieces or 8 pretty good sized pieces or 12 regular squares.

Now that I'm getting these mini cakes down I need to get some more pans that are small enough... I've been using the same glass baking dish that is definitely intended for baking meats rather than desserts and breads.


Mini Carrot Cake
(serves 6-12 depending on size)
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup sugar
2 T vegetable oil
1 large egg + 1 egg white
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup shredded carrots
4 ounces crushed pineapple, drained well

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a small square or round cake pan (I really have no clue on measurements - sorry. I'll figure it out and update this).
In a small bowl mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon together and set aside.
Mix sugar and oil until blended, mix in eggs and vanilla. Add dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. Stir in carrots then pineapple.
Pour into prepared cake pan and bake at 350 for 25 -35 minutes. The cake is done when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean and the cake starts to pull away from the sides of the pan. Cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.
For Frosting: combine 2T cream cheese, 1/2 T butter (softened), 1/4 cup powdered sugar, 1/4 tsp vanilla in a bowl and beat well. To thicken frosting beat in more powdered sugar until it reaches desired consistency. If too thick add milk until desired consistency is reached.

This is a picture of the cake on a regular size plate to give you an idea of how big it is and approximately what size pan you need. It's not too pretty, but it is DELICIOUS!