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.
