Nika's Birthday Carrot Cake

My son Nikolai was born on a night of a full lunar eclipse. I vividly remember that day and that night. When his warm, soft, and sticky body landed on my chest, I experienced a whole range of conflicting feelings. Relief from the pains of labor, joy, love, anticipation, and peace were mixed in my head in one messy post-labor daze.   My husband and I brought a child into this world. That fact seemed so strange and so profoundly beautiful. Resting in my arms, there was a boy that would change me and the world around me forever. His entrance into our lives has transformed everything we’ve known about sleep,  happiness, exhaustion, and the joy of discovery. With Nika, we have adopted this new restless curiosity that helps us explore the world like we have never explored it before.

We celebrated Nika’s fourth birthday in Mexico. This year, it was a culmination of our stay in Mazatlan and a bitter-sweet farewell to the warm and sunny days on the coast.   On that day, one happy and opinionated four-year old was merrily trotting around the patio waiting for his ultimate birthday treat—Nika’s Birthday Carrot Cake.  It was somewhat an emergency this year, an Iron Chef-type challenge with almost no kitchen equipment, an old gas oven, and a weird bottle of Mexican vanilla that suspiciously smelled like vinegar, but tasted like vanilla.

Challenges notwithstanding, my stepdaughter Matia and I got to work. Searching for a simple and scrumptious carrot cake recipe, I turned to one of my favorite food blogs Simply Recipes created by Elise Bauer.  This recipe was adapted by Elise and her family from The Silver Palate cookbook. Given the circumstances, Matia and I have further adapted the recipe in order to use the available ingredients and to fit the only loaf pan we had. I cut the recipe in half, added more pineapple and carrots, substituted white sugar with brown sugar, added pecans instead of walnuts and changed the frosting recipe by adding lime juice instead of lemon juice and a few drops of Amaretto liquor to elevate the flavor.

                                       

Nika’s Birthday Carrot Cake

Adapted from Simply Recipes by Elise Bauer

INGREDIENTS

Cake:

• 1 ½  cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup brown sugar
• ½  teaspoon salt
• ½  Tbsp baking soda
• 1/2 Tbsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• 3/4  cup olive oil
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• ½ Tbsp vanilla extract
• ¾  shelled pecans, chopped
• ¾  cup sweetened, shredded coconut
• 1 ¼ cups finely grated carrots
• ¾  cup of drained crushed pineapple

Frosting:

• 4 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
• 3 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temp
• 1 ¼ cups of confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 Tbsp lime juice
• 1-2 tsp Amaretto liquor

METHOD

• Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour 1 cake pan or 1 loaf pan.
• Sift dry ingredients into a bowl. Add oil, eggs, and vanilla. Beat well. Carefully fold in chopped pecans, coconut, carrots and pineapple.
• Pour batter into a pan. Set on the middle rack of oven and bake for 45-50 minutes (shift positions of the cake front-to-back about halfway through), until edges have pulled away from sides and a toothpick or sharp knife tip inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool on a cake rack.
• To prepare frosting, cream together the cream cheese and butter in a mixing bowl. Slowly sift in the confectioner’s sugar and beat until mixture is free of lumps. Stir in vanilla, lime juice, and Amaretto liquor. ** Note: The frosting will be less stiff than traditional cream cheese frosting.
• Once the cake has cooled, start frosting. Sprinkle the top of the cake with chopped pecans or arrange pecan halves in a crown around the top.
• Serves 6-8

Enjoy!