My friend turned the big 3-0 today! And I had the honor of making her cake. She requested carrot cake with a buttercream frosting. I found a great recipe by Alton Brown (of Good Eats fame) and proceeded to make the cake. But when I took it out of the oven, I realized it was way too small to for the importance of the event! 🙂

So I quickly made a second one (luckily I had enough of everything to make it). Admittedly as a four-layer cake it was rather imposing!

While the second cake cooled I made the vanilla buttercream and planned my decorations. The buttercream is simply butter – lots of butter – confectioner’s sugar, a little heavy whipping cream, and a vanilla bean.

I decided to pipe carrots onto the cake and reserved some of the buttercream to color orange and green (carrots and leaves). I had a little extra orange and green, so I decorated the bottom edge of the cake as well.

The end result was pretty impressive, and one of the tallest and heaviest cakes I’ve ever made!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RHIA!!