Carrot Cake/ Fish Birthday Cake

After a lot of brainstorming I finally worked out what kind of cake to make my dad for his birthday, a fish! It really should have been quite obvious to me but for some reason I couldn’t put praline out of my mind (I’ll save that idea for something else). The type of fish roughly resembles a maori wrasse, dads most recent catch.

The inside of the fishy was carrot cake iced with orange cream cheese frosting, the outside and the cake board were covered with marshmallow fondant painted with a mix of food colouring gel and lemon food flavouring.

I have to put the completion of the cake down to a lot of luck, it was my first time using this recipe, my first fondant covered cake and the first time I had tried painting icing. I had intended to make this cake over a couple of days but after some mix ups ended up doing it all in one very long night. Very long!

Carrot cake (I turned to Martha, using her recipe for Three Layer Carrot Cake)

For the cake-
2 ½ cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
12 ounces butter (at room temp)
1 cup packed brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
½ cup of water
1 pound grated carrots (approx 3 large carrots)
1 cup pecans (finely chopped)

To make the cake: Preheat oven to 180 degrees c. Grease 3 three 9-inch round cake pans (I used two 8 inch square pans) and line bottoms with baking paper. Dust with flour, tapping out excess.

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, ginger, and nutmeg.

Beat together butter and sugars on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beat well after each addition.
Mix in the vanilla, water, and carrots. Beat for around 2 minutes until well combined.
Reduce speed to low, gradually add flour mixture and then finely chopped pecans.
Evenly divide the batter between pans. Bake for about 30 minutes, until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool in pans for 15 minutes before turning out cakes onto rack. Turn right side up, and let cool completely.



Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

120 grams packaged cream cheese (room temp)
60 grams butter (softened)
2 teaspoons orange zest
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups icing sugar

To make the frosting- Beat cream cheese, butter, orange zest and vanilla with a mixer on medium speed until creamy. Reduce the mixer speed to low and gradually mix in the icing sugar until smooth and fluffy.

Spread cooled cake with frosting and cover with rolled marshmallow fondant.