Carrot Cake (Fails and Successes)

I am sorry for the absence this week. Without going in to too many personal details, this week has been very busy with an equal mixture of searching for a job and preparing for job training for another. Confusing, I know. 

Last week, I posted about a carrot cake that I was over-the-moon excited about making. It had a delicious marscapone and ginger frosting that I could already picture myself licking from the bowl...

I knew it would be the perfect dessert to enjoy after brunch on Easter Sunday. Well the cake never made it to Sunday. The cake didn't even make it to Saturday because it was such a fail. The center didn't cook and completely fell and only the edges cooked all the way through. (So clearly my family just took forks and ate around all the edges.) I ended up tossing the cake and never even got to make the frosting.

Luckily, I was able to make up for the cake failure by making carrot cake cookies this week. A few weeks ago my boyfriend and I went to Williams-Sonoma looking for a gift. My first action upon walking in to any Williams-Sonoma is walking straight to the tester counter where I can enjoy something tasty like a cracker dip, warm apple cider, or in this case carrot cake cookies. These cookies were so good that we convinced the sales associate to give us each two. My boyfriend remembered how much I liked them (and knew how much he would like me to make them for him) and bought me the mix for Easter. 

How appropriate is a fool-proof cookie mix after my last disaster in baking with carrots? This time I had no mishaps and the final product turned out great! I saved half of the dough (it's tempting me in my freezer) and plan on making a marscapone and ginger frosting to glaze on top of these cookie next time. 

I got to use my brand new paddle attachment that scrapes the sides of my Kitchen Aid while it mixes. Another thoughtful gift!

Working up my confidence to try the cake again.