World's best carrot-cake recipe

[Ling]

I do hope you'll try swapping broccoli for carrots and post some pictures of the experiment -- its so close to Halloween, and I would love to behold something hideous and terrifying. 

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The pea-green colour...the grittiness from the florets...oh man...that's a dessert I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole!!

[FoodMan]

I do hope you'll try swapping broccoli for carrots and post some pictures of the experiment -- its so close to Halloween, and I would love to behold something hideous and terrifying. 

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The pea-green colour...the grittiness from the florets...oh man...that's a dessert I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole!!

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not if you only use the peeled stems.

[Patrick S]

Does carrot cake really have to have carrots? Seriously. I love it but it has zero carrotiness in it. I have this theory that almost any vegetable would work especially zucchini, parsnips, beets, broccoli, maybe even cut the vegetables out altogether.

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Carrot cake needs carrots like triangles need three sides -- you could leave out the carrots, and you may have a fine cake, but it won't be a carrot cake! Seriously though, carrots do serve an important function -- they ameliorate the guilt you might otherwise experience after eating massive quantities of cream cheese icing.

I do hope you'll try swapping broccoli for carrots and post some pictures of the experiment -- its so close to Halloween, and I would love to behold something hideous and terrifying.

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Are you calling my broccoli cake "hideous and terrifying" before even trying it or seeing it!

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Yes, but I mean this as a compliment. It would be "hideously" amusing, and "terrifyingly" original. I hope you'll consider a thickened pea-soup layer in the middle.

<cue creepy piano music from The Exorcist>

I do hope you'll try the beet cake. That really does sound much more promising!

[spaghetttti]

I'm not that wild about carrot cake myself, but my husband would be a wildman if I didn't make it at least once a year. So I do. As the end of Ramadhan approaches I proceed to hand shred carrots (not too finely) and bake a carrot cake following a recipe a friend gave me, it's got chopped walnuts and pineapple, not crushed but hand chopped fresh pineapple.

It's a cake I've been baking for close to two decades...(only about twenty times ) Usually baked in a bundt pan, this time I decided to make layers.

[DragonflyDesserts]

I'm sure your much more interested in the inside....but don't have a pic of the cut. Thought maybe you would still like to see the finished product. It is a simple cake from a recipe I have always used out of a Betty Crocker cookbook. It has always been a success and what I have become known for. It is a moist cake with 3 cups of grated carrots. I finely grate them and love to see the carrot pieces in the cake. I've never been a fan of the baby food carrot cakes. You want to see carrot! I will have to get a picture of a slice.

[Jake]

I'm sure your much more interested in the inside....but don't have a pic of the cut. Thought maybe you would still like to see the finished product. It is a simple cake from a recipe I have always used out of a Betty Crocker cookbook. It has always been a success and what I have become known for.  It is a moist cake with 3 cups of grated carrots. I finely grate them and love to see the carrot pieces in the cake. I've never been a fan of the baby food carrot cakes. You want to see carrot! I will have to get a picture of a slice.

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Both yours and Yetti's look delicious! Recipes??? Or comparisons to Frog Commissary that I've een using?

[spaghetttti]

Jake, the carrot cake recipe that I’ve been using conveniently dumps everything into a large mixing bowl. I don’t bother with an electric mixer and just combine all the ingredients by hand with a big wooden spoon.

In a large mixing bowl whisk together these dry ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

Then add:

3 cups shredded carrots

1 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 eggs

½ cup chopped/minced pineapple

½ cup chopped walnuts

Blend all the ingredients until well combined. Pour and equally divide into greased and flour baking pan(s), one bundt pan or 2 round 8’ pans.

Bake for 30-45 minutes depending on pans used. I like to do the toothpick thing to check the center.

We don't have very good firm cream cheese here, but I always try to frost with what we do have available, by mixing about 2-3 cups of powdered sugar into 8 ounces of cream cheese and 50 grams of softened salted butter, adding 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract at the end.

I'm having the last slice as I type, and it's still good and moist after a few days.

.

[Ling]

I think the next time I do the Frog Commissary cake, I'm going to add half a cup of drained, chopped pineapple to the mix, and cut the sugar by perhaps 2-3 tbsp to account for the sweetness in the pineapple. I've looked at the proportions of all the recipes in this thread, and I think the addition of the pineapple in the FC recipe is the only thing that keeps it from being a "10" for me.

OR should I increase the amount of flour by perhaps 2 tbsp. to account for the extra moisture from the pineapple, and reduce the sugar by only 1-2 tbsp?

The News USA recipe looks pretty similar to the FC recipe, but the 1 1/2 cups of oil is a bit much (I used a very similar recipe a few years ago that had the same amount of oil/flour/carrot ratio and it was too oily.)

The UCLA recipe (cake, but not the frosting) also looks good, but I would double the amount of carrots to 4 cups, so the proportion is similar to the dense, FC cake. (The addition of cardamom and nutmeg sound interesting. )

Edited November 8, 2005 by Ling (log)

[Abra]

First let me say that I love carrot cake. I nomally make a lovely one, with nuts, and a lemon mascarpone frosting, and people rave over it. But on Saturday I'm doing an anniversary/birthday party where they requested carrot cake, and it has to look and taste perfect. Now, I'm a hot-sider by nature, but I do bake for my clients. Not pastry chef-quality stuff, but usually very nice, good to eat, freshly baked treats.

But now I have to confess that having tested two carrot cakes including pineapple and raisins and excluding nuts and coconut, as requested by this client, I conclude that I'm not fit to bake this kind of carrot cake for 50 for a party! There are too many wet ingredients, the cake comes out so heavy and moist, doesn't rise well to make a nice thick layer, seems overwhelmed by icing, I have to confess to failure. My trial cakes were sad. Maybe subbing 1/3 melted butter as recommended above added too much extra moisture. For one cake I used part brown sugar, another possible source of heaviness and moisture. Sure, I'd serve the cakes I've baked to friends, but they just won't do for this gig. For another thing, getting a perfect, precise cut, even when the cake is frozen, is so hard with the cream cheese frosting. So, the mighty Chefpeon is coming to my rescue and baking the cakes for me, which I'll then proceed to drive 300 miles away to serve them. I must be nuts.

However, I did make what I consider to the the perfectly proportioned cream cheese frosting, based on the King Arthur Flour recipe:

1 lb powdered sugar

8 oz cream cheese

3 oz butter

1 tsp vanilla

couple drops fiori di Sicilia

The last is my addition, and gives a delightfully piquant little thing to the frosting.

But really, a carrot cake, the easiest possible thing to make, every housewife in America can make one, and I'm outsourcing mine. I'm hanging my head in shame. And I'm not eating another bite of carrot cake or cream cheese frosting for at least a week!

[Ling]

^Are you referring to the FC cake (but with pineapple)...it didn't turn out for you?

Edited November 8, 2005 by Ling (log)

[Abra]

No, in the end the closest I came was the recipe from King Arthur Flour's baking book, because it already accounted for the moisture content of the pineapple. I was worried about adding to the Frog Commissary recipe, since I only had time for one trial. That will be the next carrot cake I bake, though, afetr this is all over. Actually, the cake I baked yesterday tastes pretty good today, after a night in the freezer, but I'm really glad to have Chefpeon's cakes to take with me. I have no idea what sort of mixer, pans, or anything I'll have available down there, and I think it's enough to produce the rest of a dinner for 50 in those circumstances without having to suffer Baker's Remorse into the bargain.

[FoodMan]

It took a while, but as promised, I finally got to amkign that beet cake based on Jamie Oliver's Surprise Pudding. Here are a couple of pics

The cake was pretty good, pungent with orange zest, cinnamon, fresh ginger and vanilla. It also had a distinctive beet flavor that also contributed to the nice color. It has no sugar, instead it uses honey, no butter, instead olive oil. the result was very nice and moist and served with Marsala flavored creme fraiche which gives it a nice tang. The only problem is that the polenta it had in it was not presoaked, so it remained a little too crunchy.

Next time around...broccoli cake .

Elie

edit: to remove duplicate pic and add the one that should've been there.

[Patrick S]

The cake looks pretty and sounds interesting too, Elie.

[Ling]

Foodman: I love the colour of the cake! The one you made looks better than the picture in the book...(recipe is here for those who don't own the cookbook ) Jaime Oliver's Surprise cake

Did you glaze your cake with anything? The top looks so smooth, red and shiny, while the one in the cookbook looks more orange and dry (like a carrot cake).

Edited November 17, 2005 by Ling (log)

[FoodMan]

nope, no glaze. I just have better beets than JO. No seriously the deep red color seemed to have navigated to the surface. So, if I had taken the picture in "profile" like the one in the book, then it might've looked similar to his.

[Steven Blaski]

Speaking of beets (and broccoli!), I've always thought a parsnip cake might be really good -- it's a vegetable that's as sweet as a carrot but it also has that inherent gingery spiciness that seems a natch for a cake. Anybody ever tried doing that?

Edited November 18, 2005 by Steven Blaski (log)

[Ling]

^No, but that's what I was thinking when I was looking at FoodMan's beet cake. Parsnip would interesting, I bet! I love roast parsnip, and does have a more interesting flavour (to me) than carrot.

[DiH]

Speaking of beets (and broccoli!), I've always thought a parsnip cake might be really good -- it's a vegetable that's as sweet as a carrot but it also has that inherent gingery spiciness that seems a natch for a cake. Anybody ever tried doing that?

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Absolutely... it's at the very tippy top of my list of favorites! Here's the recipe that I use... Parsnip Cake

Di

[Steven Blaski]

Speaking of beets (and broccoli!), I've always thought a parsnip cake might be really good -- it's a vegetable that's as sweet as a carrot but it also has that inherent gingery spiciness that seems a natch for a cake. Anybody ever tried doing that?

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Absolutely... it's at the very tippy top of my list of favorites! Here's the recipe that I use... Parsnip Cake

Di

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Thanks, Di, I'll give it a try!

[DiH]

My new go-to recipe for carrot cake is from Sherry Yard's The Secrets of Baking... browned butter, 'm'm'm'm'm! It didn't make quite as large a cake as she said but I've somehow managed to suffer through several smaller ones!

I also tried another yummy variation this weekend that I found in a British cookbook... Sticky Carrot Cake. A single-layer carrot cake replacing the pineapple with diced, canned/drained peaches. That's a very good combination, btw. While the cake is baking, make a simple syrup out of 1C. peach juice, 1C. sugar and 1/2 tsp. ground ginger; simmer 5-10 min., or until slightly thickened. Pour all of the hot syrup over top of the hot cake that has been placed (top-side up) on a serving platter. Cool a bit but serve while still warm... globs of whipped cream on top makes it even better!!!

Di

[Bernaise]

I had a fab carrot cake for the new year. We have a famous baker in Toronto, Dufflet Pastry. I worked for her for a number of years and of all the frostings for CC I prefer hers:

1 lb cream cheese (not Kraft Philly brand)

1 lb butter

8 oz honey

simple, easy, and makes TONS!!

[greenwich st]

Does anyone have an opinion on the Cake Bible "Golden Wheat Carrot Ring"? Coincidently I was just about to try it as my first CC attempt. I like the fact that it's all-butter and that it's made w/ half whole wheat. Also, I'm not crazy about raisins, which it omits. It seemed like a "healthy" one to try to bake into cupcakes for my 6yo's lunch treat. But I'm truly floored by all these recipe options...is this one a worthy candidate?

[greenwich st]

Just made the Cake Bible recipe. It's really delicious but not at all a classic cc, which is pretty obvious from the recipe. Light, fine crumbed, and very honey-scented, a perfect snacky cake, best with no frosting, which is usually (it could be argued) the best part of carrot cake.

[ablosh]

This is the carrot cake I made recently... Tasted great according to my family members but I was short on the cream cheese frosting...hence the "forced" decorations. Teeheehee...

(Does anyone know how I can resize this to a smaller size?)

Edited January 6, 2006 by ablosh (log)

[ksaw29]

Jake, the carrot cake recipe that I’ve been using conveniently dumps everything into a large mixing bowl.  I don’t bother with an electric mixer and just combine all the ingredients by hand with a big wooden spoon. 

In a large mixing bowl whisk together these  dry ingredients: 

2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

Then add: 

3 cups shredded carrots

1 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 eggs

½ cup chopped/minced pineapple

½ cup chopped walnuts

Blend all the ingredients until well combined.  Pour and equally divide into greased and flour baking pan(s), one bundt pan or 2 round 8’ pans. 

Bake for 30-45 minutes depending on pans used.  I like to do the toothpick thing to check the center. 

We don't have very good firm cream cheese here, but I always try to frost with what we do have available, by mixing about 2-3 cups of powdered sugar into 8 ounces of cream cheese and 50 grams of softened salted butter, adding 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract at the end. 

I'm having the last slice as I type, and it's still good and moist after a few days. 

.

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I've noticed spaghetti's recipe, the epicurious recipe and Frog Commissary's are pretty much the same. Aside from the difference in fruit and nut combos, the other difference I noticed was one used 2 tsp. soda, one used 2 tsp. powder and one used 1 tsp. each soda and powder.

I'd like to know is there a noticable difference in height and texture between the three?