Apple Carrot Cake with Molasses Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients

Cake

• 1 and 3/4 cup old-fashioned oats
• 2 cups boiling water
• 1 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened
• 2 cups dark brown sugar
• 1.5 cups white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp rum
• 3 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp grated or ground nutmeg
• 2 apples, peeled, cored, and grated
• 4 medium carrots, peeled and grated

Heat the oven to 350.
Combine the oats with the boiling water and set aside until the oats have absorbed the majority of the water.
Beat the butter and sugar together. It will be easiest if you use a kitchenaid for this or something. We did. Cream the butter and sugar together until creamy and smooth. Add the eggs one at a time. Beat until smooth and whipped. Add the vanilla and rum and mix to incorporate. Add in the oatmeal.
Combine all the dry ingredients together and whisk well. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet and mix until fully incorporated. Add the grated apple and carrot. Mix well.
Line a smallish spring-form pan with parchment paper (or grease it really well). Put about 1/3 of the mixture in the pan (this batter will make 3 tiers, so you'll have to do this 3 times. Just be prepared). Put in the oven for at least 40 minutes (we had to cook each tier for like, an hour), or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Cool each layer completely before adding the icing in between each layers.

Icing

• 1 cup whole milk
• 2 8-oz packages of cream cheese, very soft
• 1/3 cup molasses
• 1 tsp vanilla
• pinch salt
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• at least 2 cups powdered sugar - more if you want the icing to be stiffer.
  

Beat the whole milk for a while, then add the cream cheese bit by bit. This will help it incorporate better into the milk. Don't just dump the whole thing in there. Add the molasses, vanilla, salt, and nutmeg. Beat in the powdered sugar one cup at a time. Set aside and refrigerate for an hour while the cake bakes and cools.

Thoughts: This was hella good. There's just no way around it. The original recipe also called for like, a cup of coconut in the cake, but I suspect that would have made the cake way too sweet. It was pretty damn sweet as it is. It was also VERY moist, which was fantastic. I think next time we would put raisins in the cake as well, just for a little added texture. The carrot and apple was grated pretty finely, so they didn't really add much of a textural element at all. I felt more ambivalent about the frosting because it just tasted SO much like molasses. In the future I think we would either cut WAY back on the molasses or just not put it in at all and make a normal cream cheese frosting. Also we used whole milk instead of whipping cream for the frosting, which probably contributed to its texture (more like a loose icing than a frosting). Next time we would go ahead and use the whipping cream.

Disaster Index: 1-2/10

Limpa Bread II

This is another limpa bread recipe. We bought way too much rye flour so we've decided to make a new limpa bread recipe every week until the flour is used up. Stay tuned.

Ingredients

• 1 pkg yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 1 tbp sugar
• 1 cup hot water
• 1/2 cup + 2 tbp brown sugar
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 3 tbp molasses
  
• 2 tbp butter
• 2 tsp caraway seeds
• 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
• grated rind of large orange
• 2 cups rye flour
• 5 cups all-purpose flour

Mix yeast, lukewarm water, and sugar in a container. Let it sit.
In a large mixing bowl, combine hot water, brown sugar, salt, butter, seeds, and orange rind. Stir and cool to a lukewarm temperature.
Add the risen yeast and 1 cup rye flour; beat vigorously until batter is smooth.
Add another cup of rye flour and 2 cups of normal flour. Mix well.
Now add enough normal flour to form a soft dough (lots). Knead dough for about 10 minutes.
Do the microwave trick. Put in greased bowl and cover with saran wrap. Put in microwave (don't turn it on, obv.) for an hour, or until the dough has doubled in volume.
Divide dough in half. For each half, press it into a rectangle, dimple it with your knuckles, fold it in thirds, press it flat again, fold it in thirds the other way, and form it into a loaf. Set each half to rise for another hour.
Preheat oven for 350 F. When preheated, slash the top of the bread loaf and brush it with water. Put the bread in the oven and cook for 45 minutes.
Eat.

Thoughts: This was pretty good. It was easier to make than the other recipe, but it could have used more molasses. If we were to use this recipe, we would definitely brush the top with molasses before baking, and we would also sprinkle seeds over the top. Otherwise it was comparable.