Assassin's Cake IV: Caribbean Carrot Cake

One of the things that working for a video game site is great for is that I get in contact with a LOT of video game information. Like this one time, I was writing an article about a new developer's video on Assassin's Creed 4 and I was stunned by how beautiful and well-thought the game seemed. I am now officially stoked for AC4 and this cake is one of the proofs of it. By the way, it comes out next week! Eeeee...

Assassin's Creed 4 will take place in Caribbean which came in handy because I wanted to make a pineapple cake for some time. I drew inspiration from Piňa Colada, an alcoholic cocktail made from coconut rum, pineapple juice and cream. The cocktail is definitely Caribbean in nature, so I thought it would give the cake the proper flavour. I was deciding between adapting a red velvet cake (because of the red color) and a carrot cake but then I decided the chocolate flavour of RV would probably suppress the rum, pineapple and coconut punch I wanted the cake to have.

Carrot cake itself is quite sweet and moist and but I didn't want the bits of carrot to be found in the final product. I puréed the carrots into soft mash and they disappeared in the batter while giving it their thickening properties. The cake was great, tasted like pineapples with coconut, though the rum flavour was hardly there. Perhaps more rum next time?

Also, I gotta nag about the buttercream. Is Czech confectioner's sugar sweeter than the American one? The buttercream ended up way too sweet. It was okay with the pineapple in the middle layer but the top was too much sweet but I followed a recipe from my book to a point... So I don't know. Any tips on European buttercream frosting will be greatly appreciated :)


Assassin's Cake IV: Caribbean Carrot Cake

for the cake you will need:

• 125g butter, melted
• 225g all-purpose flour
• 2 medium eggs
• 250g light muscovado sugar
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon of pineapple extract
• 1 teaspoon of coconut extract
• 2 tablespoons of rum
• 200g carrots, cooked and puréed
• 50g walnuts, chopped
• 50g shredded coconut
• 100g pineapple in juice, drained, crushed 

for the frosting you will need

• 125g butter, softened
• 300g confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon of pineapple extract
• 1 teaspoon of coconut extract

for the assassin's emblem you will need

• ~20g marzipan + red food coloring
• printer, scissors

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Butter and flour the tin, the cake will rise so make sure there's flour on the sides too.
2. Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder and cinnamon into a large bowl. Whisk egg, melted butter, pineapple and coconut extract and rum together and add it all to the dry mixture and beat well. Fold in the carrots, walnuts, coconut and pineapple. Pour into the prepared tin.
3. Bake for 35 minutes or until an inserted toothpick into the centre comes our clean.
4. Leave the cake to cool, then turn out onto wire rack and let cool.
5. Meanwhile prepare the frosting - beat the butter and confectioner's sugar together until soft and fluffy which should take couple minutes. Beat in the extracts and you're done.
6. Once the cake is cool, cut it in half and if necessary, cut the top off too so that it is flat. If the inside is still warm, let it cool some more. Then spread half of the frosting evenly, lay some pineapple pieces on it and some more frosting to cover the edges. Place the other half of the cake on top of it and cover it with the remaining frosting.
7. Print the Assassin's Creed insignia. I adjusted it so that it is 9cm tall before printing it out. Carefully cut out the shape. 
8. Combine the marzipan with the red food coloring and roll it out so that it's 1mm thick. Place the paper cutout on the marzipan and with a knife, cut out the shape.
9. Place the marzipan emblem in the middle of the cake.