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.
As chefs, we spend years mastering sauté work. I remember my early days working the sauté station for lunch in a French restaurant in NYC. We served over one hundred guests in an hour-and the food was excellent — a dozen hot pans on the flat top, stocks simmering, mise en place of freshly chopped herbs, minced shallots, butter for mounting into sauces à la minute. There is rhythm to good sauté cooking. You learn quickly that great sauté work is not about rushing — it is about organization and control .
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Our Easter and Christmas meals were feasts... my mother's family all met at Aunt Flora's home in Jersey City to enjoy and celebrate the holidays. Dinner began with platters of fresh mozzarella, roasted peppers, olives, Italian bread, then a pasta course (manicotti or lasagna for the religious holidays), a roast or sausages with plenty of vegetables and traditional Italian desserts with dark coffee.We ate Italian Easter Wheat Pie one day each year—and it was never store-bought. My Aunts brought Easter cookies and baked goods-the wheat pie was my favorite. I loved the slight 'bite' of the wheat and flavors of cinnamon, vanilla and citrus. My father sometimes let me have a sip of his espresso with the dessert. I'm not sure if my mother used lard for the pie crust-she was a fan of butter and Crisco but the crust was always flaky.
There are certain dishes that stay with you—not just for their flavor, but for what they represent. For me, roasting a leg of lamb over Pommes boulangère is one of those meals. I don't recall having lamb at any occasions growing up so this was a dish that I proudly introduced to our family. As a young cook, it was something I could prepare with limited experience, and it provided deeply satisfying results. The lamb roasts in the oven over a bed of potatoes, onions, and garlic, allowing its natural juices and fat to baste the vegetables below. It's actually a simple preparation but becomes a complete, delicious meal—the potatoes absorbing flavor and becoming just as important as the roast itself. These days I'm developing delicious recipes using spice blends such as Ras el hanout, Baharat, Za'atar, Togarashi and even Harissa. I also love roasting leg of lamb outdoors on a grill or rotisserie. I like the subtle smokiness from applewood or dried herbs when I'm roasting lamb outdoors.
There are certain dishes that stay with you—not just for their flavor, but for what they represent. For me, Pommes boulangère is one of those dishes. As a young cook, it was a delicious meal I could prepare for my family with my limited culinary experience. I often return to this preparation when roasting whole chicken, pork, or lamb—letting the potatoes, onions, and garlic absorb the natural juices from the protein as it cooks. The potatoes becomes more than a side dish; it’s the foundation of the meal.
There are countless versions of Potatoes au gratin , many of them heavy with cheese. I prefer a more restrained approach—using little or no cheese—so the flavor of the potatoes remains the focus rather than being masked. Milk produces a lighter, more delicate gratin, while light or heavy cream creates a richer, more structured dish. Both are valid—it simply depends on the desired outcome. One constant, however, is nutmeg. Used sparingly, it acts as a quiet “secret weapon,” adding depth without calling attention to itself. This recipe is inspired by Xavier LeRoux, one of the finest chefs I’ve had the privilege to work with. His method includes an extra step—gently simmering the potatoes in cream before baking—which yields a noticeably superior result. The potatoes begin to release their starch into the cream early, ensuring a more uniform texture and a fully integrated dish from the first bite to the last.
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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