carrot cake and other baking disasters

For my husband's birthday I decided to bake him a carrot cake, one of his favorites, complete with cream cheese frosting. I used a recipe out of a food magazine I'd just received, one that I'd never tried before. And I say I "tried" the recipe, because, it did not work. The cake was really dry, and there just wasn't enough cream cheese frosting to cover up this terrible cake. Of course my husband and our family ate the cake politely, but it was confirmed later that yes indeed, this was a dry cake! (everyone like the cream cheese frosting though!).


In my quest for baking perfection, I decided to "try" another carrot cake recipe. In cupcake form this time. Sadly, as the photos below display, this was yet again another carrot cake disaster! In my opinion, I think the recipe had too much baking soda...

what the???

I don't know why this bothers me so much, but it does...so now I will probably attempt yet another carrot cake next weekend. Good thing I bought the giant 5 POUND bag of carrots last week!

I've had several of these baking failures lately, and I just don't get it. I'm following the recipes!! I guess you can't win 'em all. But I'll keep trying.