I just spent yesterday afternoon baking Jim a Carrot Cake. Yesterday morning we took a nice walk over to the Goodbean Cafe I had a delicious cup of hot chocolate. Jim also had a hot chocolate and a slice of Lemon, Blackberry & Poppyseed cake. He ate only half. On the walk home he proclaimed that he should have taken the other half-slice home with him, since it was so hard and dry he could have used it as a sanding block. During the walk there was more moping about how he would really love some Carrot Cake. Moreover, some very transparent comments: did I remember when I used to make him Carrot Cake and how I made the BEST Carrot Cake he’s ever had. What is a person to do? Bake him a cake, right? There’s only the two of us and I don’t eat sweets. Hopefully, James, on his way from up from SoCal to Portland, will stop in for a couple of days and take some off our hands.
However, I picked up my “so called recipe” and it was merely a list of suggestions on ingredients and baking methods. I had to set about not only baking the cake but re-writing the recipe. Can you believe my original recipe called for a box and half of Powdered Sugar? This was first time I used a spring-form pan and I really liked the results. So I had another glass of wine and decided three layers would be fun. I toasted some more Pecans and sprinkled them on the top.
It’s a good cake, extremely moist and rich. I only wish carrots still tasted like something. Back in the day, when I was baking this cake often, carrots actually tasted like…carrots!! Now they taste like cardboard. I even popped for organic and it didn’t make much of a difference. If you have access to a good Farmer’s Market, good carrots really make a difference. Also you have to shred the carrots by hand. Using a food processor introduces too many different sizes and compromises texture. Of course I enlisted Jim’s help in the grating, didn’t want to make knuckle-cheese cake.
Ingredients:
Cake
3 cups carrots, grated
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons soda
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup oil
4 eggs
1 cup pecans, chopped and toasted
Icing
1 large Philadelphia Cream Cheese
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 stick butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Grease and flour one spring form or bundt pan.
3. Mix all cake ingredients.
4. Bake for approximately 45 minutes for bundt, 1 hour & 15 minutes for spring form.
5. Cool and frost.
