To me, Carrot Cake is a vegetable!
There aren't too many childhood food memories I have of which weren't Italian...
My mother 'Claire's Carrot Cake' is one of the best!
Prep Time: 20 min
Cooking Time: 30 min
Yield: 6 portions
Ingredients
2 Cups AP Flour
2 Cups Sugar
2 tsp Baking powder
1 1/2 tsp Baking soda
2 tsp Cinnamon
1 Cup Oil
4 ea. Eggs, cracked & whisked (no shells)
3/4 Cups Crushed Pineapple, drained
2 Cups Carrots, shredded (from your garden)
3/4 Cups Golden raisins
3/4 Cups Walnuts, toasted, chopped
(rub the walnut skins off w a towl)
Cream Cheese Frosting
6 oz Cream cheese
2 Tbsp Milk
2 tsp Vanilla extract
41/2 C Confectioners' sugar
How to Prepare Carrot Cake
Step 1
Blend the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, oil and eggs together in a mixing bowl.
Step 2
Add the pineapple, shredded carrots and blend. Fold in the golden raisins & toasted walnuts.
Step 3
Pour the batter into an oiled/buttered cake mold (I use my brownie pan) and bake at 350 F (preheated oven) for 35 minutes or until the cake is cooked.
Cool at room temperature.
Step 4
To prepare the cream cheese frosting, simply blend the cream cheese, vanilla and sugar together (slow speed at first so the powdered sugar doesn't fly all over the kitchen) until smooth.
I enjoy carrot cake with powdered sugar shaken on top like a spice cake but you can frost the top and/or split and frost middle and top with cream cheese frosting as well.
For special occasions I usually color some of the frosting green and orange and pipe carrot decorations on top of the cake.
Claire's Carrot Cake
At some point my mother learned about Julia Child & began baking Paris Brest, strudels, chocolate cakes & Carrot cake.
I remember she actually won a baking contest with this Carrot Cake recipe.
I owned a little restaurant & we had a nice, dessert trolley at dinner every night. I made simple 'chef desserts' such as floating islands, mousses, tarts & my mother baked fantasic pound cakes, cookies, pies, cream puffs, etc... & her famous carrot cake! This is us at the restaurant, TW Griffy's on Mother's Day.
Now, I actually grow a few varieties of carrots in the garden at home. I like growing sweet carrots like danvers, dantes and especially the small, round, Thumbelina. The carrots actually get sweeter after being in the ground over the winter.
I'm experimenting with carrot ketchup, bbq and sriracha recipes as well as carrot top pesto and soup recipes.
I did a good amount of carrot research with Ronnie Abrams, an amazing, local carrot farmer in my area. He actually grows acres and acres of carrots for large soup companies & taught me a lot about different varieties of carrots.
There are plenty of brownie recipes—and then there is the one that lives in memory. This is the only brownie recipe I bake, from Julia Child, whose influence reached far beyond French cuisine and into the home kitchens of passionate bakers like my mother. A devoted admirer, she baked these brownies often—usually for the dessert trolley at my restaurant. We featured a brownie freeze... brownie cubes with homemade vanilla ice cream, warm melted chocolate and freshly whipped cream-amazing! For me, this recipe is more than a classic—it’s a reflection of how great cooking is passed down: through admiration, repetition, and a deep love of craft.
I taught garde manager for many years at the CIA and this is one of my favorite recipes from class. I actually developed this recipe with one of my students, inspired by a recipe he had learned on his externship.
We ate Irish soda bread one day each year—and it was never store-bought. Soda bread wasn’t part of our cultural lineage, but it earned its place through something more universal: respect for tradition. My mother was not an occasional baker— growing up, her baking centered on Italian traditions: special Christmas cookies, the Vigna family birthday cake, and beautifully braided Easter breads that reflected heritage. Later, like many serious home bakers of her generation, she was influenced by Julia Child . That influence expanded her repertoire into classic European pastry—Paris-Brest, pound cakes, even German chocolate cake. The iconic cross cut into the top of the loaf is often said to “let the fairies out,” though in professional kitchens we recognize its functional role: allowing heat to penetrate and the loaf to expand evenly during baking.
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I recently volunteered to prepare vegetable paella for a church Bible group potluck. I was very excited to develop a delicious, new paella recipe and spent time preparing fresh vegetable stock with flavors of the Mediterranean. I always prepare vegetable and fish stocks fresh, as I intend to use them. I’m not a fan of bases or frozen stocks but I sometimes add a small amount of quality base to my stocks. A vegetable stock with mirepoix, cabbage, mushrooms makes sense in certain applications, for certain recipes—but why would we use a mushroom or cabbage-forward stock in a paella? It doesn’t make culinary sense. Paella is a Mediterranean dish originating in the Valencia region of Spain as a humble meal cooked on an open fire. I’ve enjoyed wonderful paella meals in Valencia prepared with water-not stock, prepared with rabbit, snails and local beans. While traveling through Spain this spring I researched and sampled many styles of paella… no mushrooms, no carrots, no celery and no cabbage.
I still remember cooking breakfast burritos with my son Daniel, for volunteer workers at church events—simple, hearty, and made to fuel a long day of service. The workers were always so appreciative. Years later, I served a crowd favorite, nicknamed “The Bacon-ator,” a breakfast superstar inspired by the over-the-top spirit of fast-food indulgence. We had a popular food booth at the local country fair, where we cooked hundreds of breakfast burritos each day-stuffed with Mexican cheeses, extra bacon, fluffy scrambled eggs, and fresh salsa—nothing pre-made, nothing rushed. Every burrito was warm, fresh, and full of flavor. When food is made with love, even the most straightforward breakfast is memorable.
Chefs often share a bond that transcends politics, religion, and borders. While working in Saudi Arabia with a diverse group of chefs, I experienced this firsthand on my final day. To mark the occasion, they prepared special dishes representing their home countries—a generous feast rooted in tradition and pride. At the center of the table was a beautiful tray of stuffed peppers, zucchini, cabbages, squash, and other vegetables, each prepared with care and respect. As we shared the meal, the chefs beamed with pride, and the room filled with a sense of genuine camaraderie. It was a powerful reminder that food remains one of the most universal languages we have.
I remember a chef teaching me to carefully slice the center seeds from a zucchini and then prepare beautiful dices for a ratatouilli. The seeds and center area get soft and mushy before the outer 'meaty' section of the squash cooks.
Lobster macaroni and cheese is my all time favorite version of Mac and Cheese... I make it by preparing a classic lobster sauce, (flambé and all) and blending it with Béchamel sauce, macaroni and sweet, tender chunks of freshly poached lobster. Macaroni and cheese with pancetta
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