I've been toying with the idea of a cake with the frosting baked inside. I haven't had much luck using a conventional method of layering the frosting in the batter. Invariably, it would sink or create irregular pockets. Further attempts at lightening the frosting caused it to be partially absorbed by the batter. I was holding out for a clean and neat delineation.
In an unrelated experiment, I was heating an orb of butter that had been reverse-spherified in an alginate bath and realized that it withstood a fair amount of heat before the membrane ruptured. You can guess the rest.
This carrot cake was still warm when I cut into it, causing the cream cheese frosting to flow, but it was centered and well-defined. It took a little trial-and-error to get it to this point.
In the first trial, I scooped balls from the firm, chilled frosting and dropped them into an alginate bath (5g sodium alginate/ 1 litre water) for 30 minutes. The alginate reacts with the calcium present in the cream cheese and butter– forming a clear membrane around the frosting. Muffin tins were filled halfway with batter, a frosting sphere was embedded in each, then covered with another layer of batter. As they baked, the spheres rose up and broke through the surface of the batter and the membranes ruptured. Fail.
In the next trial, I flattened the frosting into a disc and repeated the steps, using a broader ramekin as a mold. This worked, I think, because it created more surface tension, keeping the frosting submerged.
I can't deny that it was satisfying to succeed, but I am far more excited about the possibilities that have opened up.
Playing with Fire and Water 
Very cool. I’m kinda disappointed that this idea didn’t occur to me. I’ve done quite a bit of experimenting with other uses for the Johnny Iuzzini Chocolate Doughnut concept (which uses this basic idea with a ganache so that it can be breaded and fried). It never crossed my mind to use it as a method to encapsulate things in a batter for baking. His method incorporates a bit of SGA methylcellulose in the ganache to keep it from breaking/seperating in the fryer. I wonder if that would help prevent fat seperation of icings during baking as well? Or was it well enough insulated by the batter for that not to be an issue?
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I suddenly have this freakish idea to try this, but instead of carrot cake and frosting, soufflé and some complimentary liquid. Or brioche and foie gras.
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I very recently tried the same thing–I wanted the frosting inside the carrot cake! In my case, I didn’t care to bake it with the frosting inside, but I was thinking along those lines.
Instead, I tried making cylinders of cream cheese frosting that would be inserted inside the already-baked cake. The plan was to freeze the cylinders of frosting, cut cylindrical holes out of the middle of the cake with an apple corer or sharpened cannoli mold (I was thinking of individual plated desserts, likely with rectangles of the cake), and insert the frozen cylinders into the holes in the cake. Then I’d plug up the hole with some of the cake cylinder I’d removed, and let the frosting temper. The advantage would be that I could saute the carrot cake in some butter, in order to further caramelize, as well as crisp, without disturbing the frosting inside.
The problem on my first run was that the normal cream cheese icing recipe (1 part butter, 4 parts cream cheese, 4 parts powdered sugar) had too much sugar to freeze! I’ve got a bunch of cylinders of cream cheese frosting in my freezer right now, in fact. They won’t harden. I’m going to need to tweak the recipe to get them to harden, and then I’ll give it another shot. Given the other components I want to plate with it (cinnamon ice cream, etc.), it definitely doesn’t need to be so sweet, that’s just the recipe that I’d always used (my mother’s).
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Do you think you would have achieved the same result had you frozen the disk and baked the cakes at a higher temp to take advantage of oven spring within the first five minutes of baking.
Secondly, in your experience, would the disk stay in place if you coated it in flour similar to what you would do with fruit or chocolate chips in muffins to keep them from sinking to the bottom?
I am thinking of ways to duplicate this process for the everyday home cook that does not have unusual ingredients in their kitchens.
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I didn’t try coating in flour, but freezing didn’t prevent it from sinking.
Please let me know if you find a better way.
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Good. Now you’re going to actually frost the tops with more frosting now, right?
Because no man eats carrot cake for the carrots.
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