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Green carrots in carrot cake


shaloop

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So I've been using the same carrot cake recipe for over a year. I sell these to restaurants and coffee shops. About 3 of the carrot cakes I've made recently have had the carrot shreds turn green by the next day. I use pineapple, baking powder and baking soda, oil, brown and white sugar, eggs, flour, cinnamon. I haven't changed anything about the recipe and am using the same ingredients. I have begun using a convection oven instead of a conventional one, but this hasn't happened on all of the cakes made in it, only a few. Any thoughts?

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What about the carrots? Are they consistently the same variety/source? Just a guess that maybe certain varieties, or the way they're treated causes a reaction with the ingredients.

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if your carrot cake is done with the creaming method, add your baking soda with the butter. That will do two things, help dsitribute the baking soda evenly and it will partially encapsulate the baking soda until the butter melts from heating.

Dean Anthony Anderson

"If all you have to eat is an egg, you had better know how to cook it properly" ~ Herve This

Pastry Chef: One If By Land Two If By Sea

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if your carrot cake is done with the creaming method, add your baking soda with the butter. That will do two things, help dsitribute the baking soda evenly and it will partially encapsulate the baking soda until the butter melts from heating.

On that note, I always add my salt and leavening during the creaming stage of any recipe, including cookies and cakes. I started doing this when I was using a 60 qt. mixer and realized that there was no way the leavening would be distributed thoroughly if I added it at the end with the flour, as is typical with most recipe instructions.

I started doing this at home on my KitchenAid also. It's quite handy as it saves you the step of sifting the leavening and salt with the flour before adding it to the recipe. If spices are involved, I include the spices in on the creaming stage too.

After doing it this way for so long, it makes me wonder why recipes want you to add in the leavening, salt and spices at the end. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me now. :unsure:

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Thanks. I googled it today and found answers ranging from too much baking soda to carrot peels left on to oxidation. I don't use butter, I use oil and I first beat whole eggs with sugar and then add oil. I'll try adding the baking soda at this point and see if it helps.

Edited by shaloop (log)
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I always peel carrots because... I always peel carrots just like beets and just about any other root. Never thought about it until now because I hadn't ever seen anyone leave the peel on.

Dean Anthony Anderson

"If all you have to eat is an egg, you had better know how to cook it properly" ~ Herve This

Pastry Chef: One If By Land Two If By Sea

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I always peel carrots because... I always peel carrots just like beets and just about any other root. Never thought about it until now because I hadn't ever seen anyone leave the peel on.

Heh heh! When you do a 60 qt mixer full of carrot cake batter, about the best thing you can do to waste time is to peel your carrots. I wash them well, cut off the tops and shred. There's nothing wrong with not peeling a carrot if you're going to bake with it. Just make sure they're clean. :wink:

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Well, the last two carrot cakes I've made I've kind of incorporated all three possible solutions into my method. I used peeled baby carrots and ground them up fine in the food processor and then added the pineapple and further ground it all together. I also added the leaveners with the whipping of the eggs, sugar and oil. So far, so good. No green carrots. Can't say which suggestion helped but at least no green carrots. Thanks for all the help.

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  • 11 months later...

I have been making carrot cake for many years now. The recipe I have is one my company has used since I started baking for them. I recently baked it in our commissary and as usual the carrot's outer edge turned green. The recipe calls for baking soda. I explained why this happens but I would like other proffessionals input. The carrots were shredded in a robo coupe. The batch size was enough for 8 full sheets. Am I the only one this happens too?

:unsure:

Dee Dee Mejia

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