My ice cream-stuffed carrot cake: a big pile of happiness for my favorite guy.
So it certainly isn’t the PRETTIEST ice cream cake on the shelf, but I’d bet you half of my cat and a Georgia keychain that this is the BEST damn tasting ice cream on the face of the planet (suck it, Dairy Queen). My husband (an all-around kick-ass person) had a birthday a few weeks back, and he loves carrot cake.
Not only do I have a killer carrot cake recipe (seriously, one of the best I’ve ever tried), but I decided to fill it with a layer of cream cheese ice cream, a layer of cranberry sorbet, and topped it all off with a pistachio cream cheese buttercream frosting. Yeah. Did I mention this was just for the two of us? And I can’t throw the extra away because it feels like somehow I FAILED. And I’m one competitive bitch.
My carrot cake. I think it could have used a smidge more pistachios.
I really like this carrot cake recipe for three reasons: 1. It is really moist. 2. There are a ton of ingredients in it, but they all go well together and give the cake a great texture. 3. The browned butter gives the cake a great flavor. Although, as noted in the photo above, I really think the cake could have had a bit more pistachio.
The front of the cake. I baked one 9 inch round cake, cut it in half, and cut the halves into two layers.
To get the ice cream and sorbet layers for the cake, I took the same pan I baked the cake in, and sprayed with oil and covered the inside with plastic wrap, leaving long bits hanging over the side. I used aluminium foil to separate the pan into two halves, and poured the churned cream cheese ice cream into one half, and the churned cranberry sorbet into the other half. I folded the hanging bits of plastic wrap on top of the ice cream and sorbet and froze it solid for several hours. (The sorbet was leftover from another meal, which is why there is so little sorbet in the cake and so much ice cream.)
The back of the cake. Again, a pastry chef I'm not. I wanted this to taste good!
When I was ready to assemble the cake, I took the out the layers, already size for the cake, and stuck them in. Since there was so little cranberry sorbet, I added a layer of pistachio buttercream on the sorbet layer.
The cake looks MUCH better sliced.
Before serving, I let the cake sit out for about 10 minutes. It’s tricky, because the ice cream was more stable than the sorbet, which melts quickly. So you can’t leave it out for too long, or the bottom layer will melt.
More cake porn.
Enjoy!
~LTG!
Recipe: Leena’s Kick-Ass Carrot Cake
Summary: This is the best carrot you’ll ever eat.
Ingredients
- 1 tsp Baking soda
- 1 pound 3 ounces Carrots, peeled and shredded
- 6.68 ounces Butter
- 1 2/3 cup Sugar
- 3 Eggs
- 2 ¼ cup A.P. Flour
- ½ tsp Salt
- 1 T Cinnamon
- 2 oz Chopped Pistachios
- 1 oz sweetened flaked coconut
- .85 oz minced ginger
Instructions
- Brown butter on the stove in a small pot over medium heat, then mix with sugar in a large mixing bowl. Mix in eggs with a wooden spoon.
- Add dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
- Add carrots and ginger and mix until evenly distributed.
- Add in coconuts and pistachios and mix in well.
- Bake @ 350 F until toothpick inserted comes out clean, 30-45 minutes. Yields one 9 inch round cake
Variations
You can substitute any nuts you like, pecans work well too. You can also use dried currants, dried cherries or regular raisins.
Cooking time (duration): 1 hr
Diet type: Vegetarian
Number of servings (yield): 8
Meal type: dessert
Culinary tradition: USA (General)
Microformatting by hRecipe.
