Here is an Easter bonus for this year: A Bunny-Shaped Carrot Cake!
AuthorRetroRuth
Tested Recipe!
[cooked-sharing]
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour pans, (This will make two round layers OR one 13 x 9 pan OR one lamb/bunny mold and a dozen cupcakes)
Beat sugar and eggs until thickened and pale. Stir in oil.
Sift together dry ingredients and spices. Stir into egg mixture, then fold in nuts and carrots.
Pour batter into pan, bake for 30 minutes for layers, 25 minutes for cupcakes, 40 minutes for a 13×9 pan and 45-50 minutes for a lamb/rabbit mold.
Cool on cake rack and frost with cream cheese frosting.
Cream together cream cheese and butter. Add confectioner’s sugar one cup at a time, beating well after each addition. Add more sugar depending on your desired frosting thickness. Add vanilla and beat well until velvety.
Ingredients
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour pans, (This will make two round layers OR one 13 x 9 pan OR one lamb/bunny mold and a dozen cupcakes)
Beat sugar and eggs until thickened and pale. Stir in oil.
Sift together dry ingredients and spices. Stir into egg mixture, then fold in nuts and carrots.
Pour batter into pan, bake for 30 minutes for layers, 25 minutes for cupcakes, 40 minutes for a 13×9 pan and 45-50 minutes for a lamb/rabbit mold.
Cool on cake rack and frost with cream cheese frosting.
Cream together cream cheese and butter. Add confectioner’s sugar one cup at a time, beating well after each addition. Add more sugar depending on your desired frosting thickness. Add vanilla and beat well until velvety.
Notes
This is another recipe I dug from my extensive recipe card collection. This one is from the same collection as the Man Lamb, but this recipe is pretty much the classic Wesson oil carrot cake with a few tweaks. The first thing that caught my eye was the huge amount of shredded carrots, and the lack of any other additions which were popular at the time (raisins, coconut, crushed pineapple). I’ve always wanted to leave everything else out of my carrot cake and try just carrots (and nuts), so this was a good chance to try that out.
Now, if you’re anything like me, the second thing you’d notice about this cake is the lack of salt. No salt. No salt! I almost didn’t go through with this cake because of this, but after a lot of harassing from Tom I pressed on to finish it.
Carefully placing a brace.
Feeding the rabbit yet another carrot.
And – Success! Sort of!
You can’t really tell by this picture, but it didn’t rise very much at all. There wasn’t even close to enough to make it into the other half of the mold. I had forgotten that carrot cakes usually don’t rise a ton. I remembered at this point (of course) that I used to make a carrot cake lamb by baking the two halves separately and “gluing” them together with cream cheese frosting. That wasn’t ideal, but it did work.
But I had already committed to baking it all at once, so I just went with it. The cake was very moist and soft, and there was no way it was going to stand up on it’s own in one piece. After I depanned it, I even had trouble getting it to another tray in one piece, the ears just wanted to flop right off the head.
But, probably due to all the oil, it was a cinch to actually get it out of the mold!
And now for the taste test. Do extra carrots really make a difference?
“Is it good?”
“Get away from me, this is my cake.”
“I’ll take that as a “yes”, but you still have to share with your daughter.”
“Do you like it Alex?”
“It’s good! It tastes like carrots!”
The Verdict: Very Good, But Doesn’t Stand Up
From The Tasting Notes –
Overall, this was a really good carrot cake. The cake was carrot-packed and very moist. It had a good flavor on its own. You could totally taste the lack of salt, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I thought it needed salt, but Tom liked the taste without salt. He said it tasted sweeter and more of carrots. So I guess salt is up to your personal preference! Once the delicious cream cheese frosting went on though, it pretty much just tasted like sweet cream cheese and that was it. Once again, not a bad thing. This recipe was pretty much just all carrots, so feel free to sub cups of raisins, crushed pineapple, coconut, etc. for cups of shredded carrots to your preference. As far as the lamb/rabbit cake aspect of it, this was delicious but did not make a good molded cake. It was very moist and soft, and though it de-panned very well there was no way it could stand up under it’s own weight. If you have a few days to get your cake together, you could refrigerate or freeze the cake and then try to stand it up and frost it. Once the frosting is refrigerated it *might* stand on its own. But if you don’t want to take a risk and if you don’t mind a laying down cake, then I recommend this because it was delicious.
So would the above recipe be enough to fill both halves of the lamb mold or do I need to double it? I would like to try the frosting “glue” method.
The recipe will be enough for both sides! I would suggested “gluing” them together and then letting them set laying down in the fridge before you try to stand them up. Good luck!
I would like to make a small version, in an 8″ or 9″ square pan, or even cupcakes. Do you think if I cut the ingredients right in half it will come out good? (I suppose I could make two round cakes and freeze one, though.)
I think if you halved it, the recipe would come out just fine! If you make cupcakes, make sure to fill the cupcake liners less than 3/4 full and grease the top of the pan. They don’t really rise so much as ooze over the top, and wherever they touched the cupcake pan they stuck like crazy. Good luck!
Oh yum! Time to get some more carrots!!
I gave up on carrot cakes after experimenting for my blind MIL. Neither one of us likes the flavor the oil imparts and I’ve tried regular vegetable oil, coconut oil, and grape seed oil. All were yucky to us both.
I stumbled upon a carrot cake muffin recipe last year which uses butter and is yummy, so that is what I make now. It stood up to Mom’s requirement to include raisins, nuts, and pineapple just fine.
Oh, that is so funny, feeding the bunny a carrot! Thank you for the recipe! I do believe I’m going to try this for Easter in a few days.