The Joy of Cooking

Ok, so I recently bought the Joy of Cooking cookbook, and today I made a carrot cake. I have never made a cake from scratch, but my dear friend Ellen just graduated from high school (and I was away at school for her April birthday) and she adores carrot cake, so I simply had to try the recipe. This is the second recipe I've tried from the Joy cookbook, the first being a picture-perfect coffeecake (seriously, you could have sold that stuff at Starbucks--I really should have documented it) that I baked for my dad on Father's Day morning. One success encourages another... I hope. Well, I documented every step of my first-cake-experience, so here goes. 

All this stuff would become a carrot cake: flour, sugar, spices, grapeseed oil (I swear by this for baking), eggs (at room temperature, for some reason or other), grated organic carrots, chopped walnuts, and organic raisins. 

First this stuff:

Then this stuff:

Mmm... Delicious:

Then this stuff: 

Out of the oven and smelling outrageously edible:

Final Cooling:

Homemade cream-cheese frosting (the secret is apparently cold cream cheese)--just a caveat, but this should really be a schedule 1 controlled substance:

And the Finished Product!

Too much documentation? Hey, I get excited about these things. And I certainly hope it's tasty, because I'm bringing it to a pot-luck graduation party tonight. I'm not too worried. :-)