Settlers of Catan Carrot Cake

While I’m writing this up I’m listening to the Philip Glass violin concerto.  I got so excited when I heard it on the radio awhile ago that I went home and bought immediately.  He just has that trademark sound so I knew it was his composition; I didn’t even know he had written any concertos. 

Now let’s make some cake and eat it too…After seeing some pictures of Catan cakes online TJ had it on his brain months ago that I would be a nice enough wife to make one for him.  It turns out he’s right :).  Once I figured out a way that I could make it without too much frustration I went for it for TJ’s birthday party last night.  There were some frustrating times, like when I realized that I had forgotten to make any sheep, doh!  If you’ve never worked with royal icing, it’s rather fun!  Just to give you an idea, it has the consistency of Elmer’s glue and it dries with a matte finish.

Royal icing:

16 oz powdered sugar

3 pasteurized egg whites (to pasteurize bring water to 150°, take it off the burner, and then put in the whole eggs for 5 minutes – slowly pour in cold water to bring down the temperature again)

1 tsp vanilla

Separate the eggs and use just the whites.  Using a mixer, beat all the ingredients until smooth and glossy; this will take a few minutes.

                                                                          °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°  

First I used a template to make the outlines with my handy bottle.  You could use a piping bag, but the bottle was so much easier. I think I paid $1 for it.

After the outlines dried I mixed up the different colors and added just a little bit of water so the frosting could “flood” the empty spaces.  I mostly used a toothpick to add some details and swirl in different colors.

The number tiles took FOREVER because the black gel frosting thing I had bought had a tip that was much too big, so I had to resort to using a toothpick again to paint on the details.

I had made extras, but thankfully none of the tiles broke besides the first one (don’t worry, I used an ugly one for the tester) after I figured out a method of taking the dried tiles off the wax paper.

The candy toppings included a gummy bear robber named Yogi and some Twizzler roads and settlements.  Watch out, red almost has longest road!

The cake itself was a deliciously moist carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.  Blue frosting on a carrot cake kind of threw me off, but it tasted heavenly.

We had a terrific party with great friends, and I’m so glad that I got to share this cake with people!  We still have a bunch left so if you randomly stop by my house in the next two days expect to be fed carrot cake.