Recipe: Carrot Cake with Cinnamon Chocolate Swirl Whipped Cream

Carrot Cake
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
2 cups all-purpose flour (I misread the original recipe which only called for 1 1/2 cup but it came out delicious with that extra half cup) plus some to dust the pans
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 pinch all spice
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups grated carrots
Butter to grease pan

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease your pan(s) with butter and dust with flour. I used two pans, one 8" and one 4" so I could make a tiered cake.
Beat sugar, eggs, oil, vanilla and heavy cream together in a bowl with an electric mixer until well combined.
In another bowl mix together flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, baking powder, baking soda and salt together. Slowly add 3/4 of the flour mix to the sugar continuously stirring. Mix until well blended and then add the carrots (I meant to add chocolate chips as well, but I forgot). Add in the remaining flour.
Pour into your pan(s). Bake until a tooth pick inserted into the center of the cakes come out clean. The smaller cake pan took approximately 20 minutes to cook while the larger pan took almost 30 minutes.
Let cool completely before frosting.

I adapted the original recipe Martha Stewart's Carrot Cake Mini cupcakes and adjusted it to what I had in my cupboards. I also decided to make a cake instead of cupcakes because one of my friends already made Strawberry cupcakes for our Easter Dessert.

The original suggests using a Cream Cheese frosting but I also decided against it for this time. Mostly I didn't feel like buying cream cheese. I also really wanted a lighter topping for the carrot cake so I decided to make my own concoction. I've really enjoyed making whipped cream frostings so I decided to go with that again, and since I forgot to add in the chocolate chips to the carrot cakes I added a chocolate ribbon to the whipped cream as well for a little texture and flavor. I frosted each layer with the chocolate ganache itself and then added the delicious whipped cream

Cinnamon Chocolate Swirl Whipped Cream
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 package of chocolate chips
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbs brown sugar

In a double boiler (or a makeshift like I use) melt your chocolate with a 1/4 cup of heavy cream (or milk) until you have a smooth creamy texture. Remove from heat and stir periodically as it cools.
In a cold bowl whip your whipping cream, cinnamon and brown sugar together until you get stiff peaks.
When the chocolate is room temperature (preferably cooler), add in about 1/4 cup of the cinammon whipped cream. Pour this ganache onto the layers of your cake.
Then very gently fold about half of the chocolate into the whipped cream. You can add as much of it as you like to the cream depending on how chocolate you want your whipped cream to be.
Refridgerate until you're ready to frost.

The whipped cream and ganache I didn't use to frost the cake I stored in air tight containers. I might just eat them on their own. Yes, they're that good!