Carrot cake

=^..^=
Mmmmm... carrot cake... mmmmmmmm... :D

I am sure the rest of the world knew about the awesomeness that is carrot cake long before I did, but whatever.
I also know it's not an exclusively NZ dessert, but it is here that I had my first piece of carrot cake, in Hamilton, June 2009.

My first piece of carrot cake :D

If you know me personally, you know I do not go for chocolate and / or very sweet desserts, and if I am excited over one, it is really really mindbogglingly good.

I found a really neat recipe* here and started working on it today. It is simple to make and the result is fantastic.

The batter. YUM.

I absolutely hate greasing trays up,
but here you can buy oil in a spray can. Yaaay...

The icing: sugar, butter, cheese and lemon zest.
Tastes almost as icky as it sounds,
but fortunately the cake is more than the sum of its parts.

Cooling off on a rack.

About to wrap it up and stick it in the fridge...
but then I thought little wavy decoration would look super cool...

WAVY! YUMYUMYUM!

You might have noticed how it looks like it shrunk in the tray it was baked in. That's not how it got shorter before the icing was put on... *cough* ... SOMEONE got antsy and we cut a piece off while it was still cooling off... Then when it was finally done, icing and all, we let it in the fridge for almost an hour and then I caved again and Jeannot soon followed :P

*a couple of notes on the recipe, in case you wanna give it a try yourself:
- I used an actual measuring cup (2,5 dl)
- the cream cheese must be Philadelphia cheese
- the vanilla essence: it is waaaaaaay diluted in this country! So, if you're doing this in Slovenia, make it a couple of drops of essence, or better yet, a packet or two of vanilla sugar
- I baked it in a tray, and baked it for 45 min at 180 degrees C, on baking paper
- Carrot cake is supposed to be very sweet and I didn't wanna fuck with the recipe the first time, but I am definitely gonna half the amount of sugar I use in the future.