Chocolate carrot cake with hazelnuts and orange cream cheese frosting

Heat the oven to 350F.

Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, allspice, cardamom and espresso powder.

Sift the dry mix to break up the cocoa lumps, then whisk. Reserve one tablespoon of it.

Grate one pound of carrots on a box grater and set aside.

Toast the hazelnuts in a 350F oven about 10 minutes, shaking halfway so they brown evenly, then chop fine.

Toss the chopped hazelnuts with the reserved tablespoon of dry mix so they do not sink.

In a large bowl combine the eggs, applesauce, sour cream, vegetable oil and butter and stir to start.

Add the vanilla, granulated sugar and brown sugar and mix until evenly distributed with no lumps of sugar or sour cream.

Grate the dark chocolate.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir until almost combined, leaving a few streaks of flour; overmixing is what ruins the cake.

Fold in the carrots, the hazelnuts and the shaved chocolate, finishing the mixing as you fold.

Divide between three prepared eight inch pans and level the tops.

Bake at 350F for half an hour, or until a skewer comes out of the middle clean.

For the candied carrots, bring one cup sugar and one cup water to a boil in a small pot and stir to dissolve.

Slice one large carrot into thick strips with a vegetable peeler, pressing hard; discard the first slice.

Set a second oven to 225F.

Drop the carrot strips into the syrup and hold at a low simmer, twirling occasionally, until they soften and turn translucent.

Unravel the hot strips gently and lay them flat on a wire rack.

Bake the strips at 225F for 10 to 15 minutes; at 10 minutes they should be tacky, not dry, or they will crack instead of curling.

Working quickly, twist each warm strip around a wooden spoon handle, about two strips per handle, keeping the coils almost touching; tie with twine if they spring back.

Dry the curls at room temperature about an hour, propped so they touch nothing, then slide them off.

For the frosting, beat the room temperature cream cheese and unsalted butter on medium high for three minutes until smooth with no lumps, scraping the bowl at least once. Add the salt.

Mix in the vanilla and the orange zest.

Add six cups of powdered sugar a cup at a time on low, sifting it if lumpy; scrape the bowl, then beat on medium one minute until fluffy. Chill the frosting if it is too soft.

Stack the cooled layers with one and a half cups of frosting between each.

Even out a thin crumb coat over the whole cake, including a paper thin layer on top, and chill half an hour.

Warm a block of chocolate slightly with a hairdryer, heat gun or blow torch and shave curls off with a knife or vegetable peeler.

Frost the chilled cake with the remaining frosting, smoothing the top and using a bench scraper on the side; a smooth-ish finish is enough.

Pull a clean offset spatula in as you turn to sharpen the top edge, cleaning it between passes.

Press a skirt of chocolate shavings a third of the way up the side as a gradient, then mound the candied carrot curls on top, least successful ones first.