A carrot cake with fluffy white-chocolate icing for the new baby! Day 57

Perhaps the best way to coax this baby out of an obviously too-comfortable womb would be to invite it to a birthday party, complete with a freshly made cake. Even if my plan to entice this baby to come out and join us didn’t work, at least the rest of us fully gestated people could enjoy a nice dessert while impatiently waiting for my labour to begin. I chose the Carrot Cake with Fluffy White-Chocolate Icing recipe for baby’s birthday cake. Plus, I had been promising my sister-in-law/housemate/student to make it for months now. Carrot cake is her absolute favourite cake in the world.   

Assuming that this baby would be on time or early, like our toddler was, my parents had come from Manitoba to stay with us and had already been here for one whole week. When I advised them of my cake-baking plan as an unorthodox labour inducing technique I found out that carrot cake was also my father’s favourite cake in the world. Funny that I didn’t know that before. Although, come to think of it, his love of food in general is so intense that I never considered him having any sort of grading system other than loving it or (rarely) hating it.   

It was early in the morning, as our toddler had decided it was time for us all to wake up and start the day. I made the icing first and was impressed with how little of the white chocolate I consumed before 8 AM. This recipe makes a lot of icing so you will definitely have extra to freeze and use for something else.  

I was excited to use my two new round cake pans. I preheated the oven, oiled the pans and lined them with parchment paper. I followed each step in the recipe and made sure not to over mix the ensuing batter. After I baked the two round cakes I used the toothpick trick to test if they were adequately cooked after 25 minutes. Since I don’t have a cake tester, my sister-in-law taught me to insert a toothpick into cakes, cupcakes or loaves and if the toothpick comes out clean then they are ready to be removed from the oven. After 25 minutes, the cakes were perfect.   

My carrot cake-loving sister-in-law was by my side as I sliced the cakes in half and put on the icing. She said, “That looks so good it’s unfair to people who can’t eat it”. “Who can’t eat it?” I asked her. She replied, “Anyone who’s not here.” I took from her reaction that she was expecting this cake to be as good as it looked. And that we would be eating it very, very soon. Would this baby come before the entire cake is consumed?   

The cake was delicious as my sister-in-law and father will attest. They both agreed, emphatically, that this was the best carrot cake they ever remember having. My mother, husband and I loved that it was so moist and that the icing was perfect: not too sweet with the subtle white chocolate and cream cheese combination. Our toddler? He loved it too. Though we all wanted another piece we were able to exercise some self-control and refrigerate the rest of the cake so we could try not to eat it until the baby came.     

Our baby arrived just one day after the birthday cake-eating party. The labour was fast and successful: the midwives barely had a chance to eat the cranberry-bran muffins and white chocolate scones I had made and brought to the hospital.   

At one day and a half old, our brand new baby boy dozed outside while mommy enjoyed the last piece of carrot cake, which had remained moist and flavourful in the fridge for three whole days.