The end of October and beginning of November mark three birthdays in the household. Both of my in-laws have birthdays just a few days apart, and it’s also our dog’s birthday a few days before that. Last weekend we celebrated all three, and I also had to bake a chocolate babka for my GBBO bake along, so I did a lot of baking. The humans requested something with fall flavors like an apple or carrot cake. They both sounded really good, so, I figured, why not both?
The Human’s Cake
I ended up making a layer cake that had a layer of carrot cake sandwiched between two layers of apple spice cake. I figured all the flavors should go together well, and they did. It was a big hit. I wish I had more and better pictures, but while I baked the cakes and prepared the buttercream and frosting at home, I assembled and decorated at my in-law’s house, so I didn’t have my DSLR, lights, etc., to get good photos. What I present here are cellphone snaps, which sadly don’t really do the cake justice. I assure you it was beautiful.
For the carrot cake layer, I used this recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction. I also used the cream cheese frosting recipe from there for the frosting between the layers of the cake.
For the apple spice layers, I used Preppy Kitchen’s Apple Spice Cake recipe. I just tweaked the amounts a bit to make 2 9″ layers. I was lucky to have both carrots and apples from our CSA membership which meant they were super fresh (like in the ground and on the tree the day before I used them fresh) and super good.
Putting it Together
For finishing I made a plain buttercream that I used to do a rustic crumb coat, and another batch of buttercream that I did with a mix of orange and red fall colors for some freehand decorating. It’s hard to see the dual color of the decorations in the picture but it was pretty striking in real life. I sprinkled on some yellow sprinkles for a final touch.
All in all this was a 3 layer 9″ cake.. it was HUGE. The photo above is what was left after 5 people already each had a slice. Cake for weeks!
The Dog’s Cake
The pup’s cake was a much simpler affair, but no less of a hit (let’s be honest, she doesn’t care what it looks like). I followed Love from the Kitchen’s Spoiled Dog Cake recipe. The only slight change I made was using whole wheat flour because it’s a little better for dog’s than regular AP.
