Happy spring!  Oh, the allergies are getting real now…and the bees, so many bees…  But on the bright side, the temperature has been in the comfortable 70s (at least here in Southern California) and all the bushes and trees are pink with pretty blossoms.
With Easter approaching in just a few weeks, I thought some carrot cake would be totally appropriate right now, and this recipe in particular is just too good not to share.

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I love carrot cake because I love the sweet flavor of carrots combined with walnuts and raisins that pairs perfectly with the tanginess of cream cheese, plus the hint of spices that reminds me of fall and the holidays, as much as the carrots remind me of spring and Easter bunnies.  I’ve made carrot cake several times using a couple of different recipes, but none can compare to this one- this is seriously the softest, moistest, richest, overall most delicious carrot cake you will ever try.  It has perfect levels of sweetness, spice, and carrot flavor, and the cream cheese frosting is creamy, smooth, and just simply delectable.

Just from cutting into it, you can tell how deliciously moist and mouth-watering this cake is.

Or can you?

HAPPY APRIL FOOLS’!!!

Ha ha, did you see that coming?
Yes, this is actually a red velvet cake frosted to look like a carrot cake.  And yes, it’s only March 30th, but I just thought I’d share this a tiny bit early for anyone looking last-minute for a clever (but not too harsh) April Fools’ food prank.

I don’t have a recipe for this concretely written out like I do in my other posts, because it’s fairly easy to prepare and can be done with any red velvet cake recipe or cake mix of your choice.  Mine was baked using a recipe from Food Network, which I reduced to make a mini-sized cake, since I happened to be running low on cream cheese.

Anyways, now that the big twist is over, let’s go through the steps!

First, prep your red velvet cake batter and bake it in two (or three, depending on the size of cake you want) round cake pans.  Level off the tops of the cakes and shave off the sides, and then whip up some cream cheese frosting and stack your cake layers with the frosting in between.  Frost generously so that the frosting goes all they way to the edges of the cake, leaving no room for air bubbles when you do your outer coat.

Then cover the cake in a thin “crumb coat” layer of frosting, just enough to seal in any red cake crumbs that we want to make sure won’t be seen, and refrigerate the cake for 10 to 15 minutes,

Now that your crumbs are sealed in, cover the cake with a thicker layer of frosting and try your best to smooth out the surface as much as possible.

Color a small amount of your cream cheese frosting orange and another separate amount green, and transfer each into its own piping bag.  To make little carrot shapes on top of the cake, start closer to the center and pipe out a small line of orange frosting towards the edge while gradually increasing your hand pressure and slowing down very slightly, to allow one end of the line to be slightly wider.  Pipe three dots or short little lines of green frosting at the wide end of the carrot closest to the edge of the cake.  Repeat as many times in as many places as you’d like depending on how you want your cake decorated.

I just went with a circle of six carrots on the top, but you can pipe one big one in the center or maybe have them pointing down on the sides of the cake.

If the sides of your cake are blank, finely chop some walnuts and press them into the frosting like you would with sprinkles.  I only went up about two-thirds of the way with my walnuts, but you can certainly cover the sides completely.

And now you’re finished and ready to serve it to your unsuspecting, carrot cake-loving April Fools’ victim!

You can actually use any combination of cake types that are noticeably different from each other.  I chose to combine carrot cake and red velvet cake since they both have cream cheese frosting (so there are no new flavors that might clash) and since red velvet has a pretty distinctly colored interior that looks clearly different from carrot cake.

Compared to a cardboard cake or a balloon slathered with frosting that explodes all over you when cut, this prank is a little nicer, not the “BWAHAHAHA! I GOT YOU!!” type but more like “Oh? Ha ha, surprise!” (unless someone really doesn’t like red velvet).  Maybe you might actually trick someone who is anticipating a fake cake prank- kind of like pranking them into thinking they’re being pranked, when they are, but not in the way they’re expecting.

Have a fun April Fools’ Day!  Give this a try on someone and comment their response below