The owner of the company I work for recently celebrated his birthday. Carrot cake is one of his favorites. Having never made a Carrot cake before I set out to my usual books to see what I could come up with. Bo Friberg’s Carrot Layered Cake with Cream Cheese Filling fit the bill nicely. It’s well worth the time and effort. Several of those receiving a piece let me know it was the best carrot cake they had ever had. This cake took me close to 8 hours to complete, so compliments were both a relief and an encouragement.

If you ever wanted to try something ambitious in the home kitchen here is your chance. This recipe is both time and labor intensive. In a commercial bakery, all the parts would most likely already be available making the time needed to complete much less.

The recipe and detailed instructions are at the end of this post. For this recipe we need eggs, vegetable oil, granulated sugar, salt, bread flour, ground cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, carrots, walnuts, cream cheese, unsalted butter, vanilla extract, powdered sugar, vanilla buttercream, Marzipan, food coloring, powdered sugar, dark coating chocolate, and hazelnuts. Looks like we have it all. Ready, set, bake…

In a mixing bowl using the whisk attachment whip the eggs at high speed to a light and frothy consistency. Reduce the mixer speed to medium and gradually add the oil. Turn the mixer speed to low and mix in the sugar and salt.

Mix until combined. Sift together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder. I used a fine grade strainer for this rather than a traditional sifter. The main reason to sift is to ensure the ingredients are not lumpy and are evenly distributed. Add to the egg mixture and mix until combined.

Fold in the carrots and walnuts, evenly distributing them into the batter. Pour batter into a 10-inch greased cake pan. I use an oil spray and a parchment paper round on the bottom to ensure it does not stick to the pan. I saved the original cardboard liner in the pan to use as a template for both paper and the Marzipan in this recipe.

Bake at 375°F for about 30 minutes or until the cakes spring back when pressed lightly in the center. Allow the cake to cool. It’s important the cake has cooled completely before attempting to work with it. If it is not cool enough it will be difficult to both cut the top off and slice into layers.

Soften the cream cheese, using the paddle attachment of an electric mixer.Use a slow speed so no additional air is added to the cream cheese. Add the butter and blend until the mixture is smooth. Add the vanilla and powdered sugar. Mix until smooth and spreadable.

Cut the top off the carrot cake to make it level (again – make sure the cake is completely cool before doing this). Evenly cut the cake in half horizontally.

Evenly spread the cream cheese filling over the top of the bottom half of the cake. Place the top portion on top of the filling. Make sure the layers line up or you will end up with odd shaped individual pieces when they are cut later on.

Frost the top of sides of the cake with the buttercream. You can use any vanilla buttercream recipe you like or a store purchased buttercream if you are pressed for time.

Cover the sides of the cake with the crushed hazelnuts. Roll out 5 ounces of the marzipan, using powdered sugar to prevent it from sticking to 1/8 inch thick. I used a lot of powder sugar to roll it out, the day was very warm and the Marzipan kept falling apart. One of the main ingredients of Marzipan is powdered sugar, so don’t worry about using too much. Cut out a circle the same size as the top of the cake and place it on top of the cake. As mentioned above I used the cardboard insert that came with the pan as a template for this. You can make your own by tracing the bottom of your cake pan and cutting into size.

Invert the cake on a cardboard round and refrigerate upside down for no more than two hours. I used a heavy layer of powdered sugar to ensure the Marzipan would not sweat and stick to my cardboard. You don’t want to leave this in the fridge for more than two hours or it will start to stick.

Color 1/2 ounce of the marzipan green. Combine the red and yellow food coloring to tint the remaining 2 ounces of marzipan orange. Cover and reserve. If you don’t cover it the Marzipan will dry out.

Roll the orange marzipan into a 9-inch rope and the green into a 4 1/2-inch rope. Cut the orange and the green ropes into 12 equal pieces. Cover with plastic wrap.

Roll the orange pieces into round balls. Roll each ball into a cone shape about one inch long by rolling them back and forth against the table. With toothpick make a slight indentation on top for stem.

For each green piece of marzipan roll into a 1/2 inch (1.2 cm) string. Tapper the string on both sides. Cut and fan the green end to resemble a carrot top.

With a toothpick make horizontal lines around each piece of the orange Marzipan carrots. Insert on end of the stem into the hole of the carrot. If they don’t stick use a little water on the tip of the green Marzipan before inserting the green stems.

Remove the cake from the refrigerator. Turn the cake right side up, remove excess powdered sugar and cut it into the desired number of servings. I created a template to get 12 even pieces. The cake is easiest to cut when cold. I recommend pre-cutting the cake at this point, but there is no reason you could not slice it when you serve it (as long as the marzipan carrots are placed evenly for the number of pieces you need).

Pipe a dime-sized dot of the melted coating chocolate on each slice, 1/2 inch away from the edge. Place a marzipan carrot on top of each of the chocolate spots. You can use white chocolate for this as well if you want to “hide” how the carrots are stuck to the Marzipan.

You may want to use these recipes for Buttercream and Marzipan (or use your own or store bought).