Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese

Carrot Cake

I finally found a baking recipe that I truly love--to the point that I literally have to stop myself from eating it (and that means a lot coming from a non-sweet-tooth individual). It's so good I'm not even sure if I (or anyone else) can make better. It's possible perhaps, but generally "better" in baker's language is interchangeable with "fattier".

Recipe adapted from: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Carrot-Cake-III/Detail.aspx

Pretty much followed exactly. Like I said, I don't really mess around when it comes to baking.

Notes:
I added cinnamon very generously. Quite possibly at least double what the recipe called for. I do this a lot in recipes that call for cinnamon. I also tend to add more vanilla extract than described. All other ingredients I keep to pretty well.

I took it out at around 40 minutes (the earlier time period). I'm kind of a snob when it comes to cakes/brownies/cookies--I like them moister and denser and I absolutely hate it when the texture is, well, dry and cake-y... so I tend to slightly undercook my desserts on purpose. (And I absolutely despise American-made cakes, or at least the ones I've tried because of their cake-y characteristics.) 40 mins was good enough time in my oven to take out a toothpick clean.

I also let the cake half-cool before I started throwing the frosting on. I know you're not supposed to do this until the cake is completely cooled (because frosting melts from the heat emitted by the cake and makes it too difficult to spread an even layer, or you can spread too fast and you'll remove a thin delicate layer of cake with your tough frosting), but I wanted to go for a more "melty" look of frosting and I did it anyway in spite of the rules--with extreme caution. You know what I mean by "melty": when it doesn't look like the frosting and cake are completely separate layers--it looks like the frosting is slowly creeping into the pores of the cake, becoming united as one. I actually have no idea if this method really works, but I got what I was going for in taste and looks and it was absolutely phenomenal.