hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with carrot cake that's right out
of all the vegetables people have tried to make cakes with only one hit it big
and that was the humble carrot and I know zucchini did get a bread which is
kind of impressive but still it is a bread so carrot wins by vegetable base
dessert rankings aside I'm very excited to show you this and we'll go ahead and
begin that by getting together our dry ingredients and I'll start with a couple
cups of all-purpose flour to which we will add some salt as well as some
baking soda and baking powder oh.he how we're doing both this time and
then as far as spices go we'll do some ground ginger as well as a couple spoons
of cinnamon and that's it we'll simply take a whisk and give this a thorough
mixing to make sure all those ingredients are nicely combined and once
that's been accomplished we'll simply set that aside and start on the wet
ingredients it will begin that by adding a little touch of sugar to this bowl
into which we're gonna whisk four large whole eggs and by the way if you're
thinking hey Sugar's not a wet ingredient no it's not physically but
the baking and pastry chefs consider it a wet ingredient in these recipes and
since they tend to be kind of a temperamental group we let him call it
what they want but anyway we're gonna whisk those eggs and sugar together for
a few minutes until it all looks a little something like this
at which point we're ready to add our melted fats and we're doing two kinds
here we're gonna do some unsalted butter as well as some coconut oil which kind
of sort of looks like vegetable shortening at room temperature except
according to my sources it's way way healthier for you and I'll give more
info on the blog about exactly which one to use
but anyway what we'll do is place that over low heat until it just melts right
we don't want this too hot just until it melts and if you think it did get too
hot just let it sit and cool till it's just warm and then what we'll do is go
ahead and whisk that into our egg and sugar mixture which we were probably
supposed to do gradually but I don't and didn't and it works fine
go ahead and stir all that together at which point it's ready for the star of
the show our carrots which we are gonna need to peel and grate first and that
might not sound like something you need a tip for but I'm gonna give you one
anyway and that's that if you grate a carrot at an angle you're gonna get
longer strands which I don't really want here all right by doing the carrot knot
at an angle more perpendicular like this you're gonna get much shorter gratings
okay much smaller pieces which I think works better in this recipe is sure that
probably means this will take an extra minute or two but I think it's worth it
of course having said that any way you do this is probably going to be fine and
if you think about it technically no matter how you do it you're doing a
great job but anyway we're gonna need to get about two generous cups which we'll
go ahead and transfer into our wet ingredients along with some crushed
pineapple and if using them some nuts and I am I'm going to do some pecans and
walnuts and once those are in we'll go ahead and give this a stir and because I
wanted it to be harder and take longer I used a nice small spatula and then
what we'll do to finish this batter off after switching to a bigger spatula is
we'll go ahead and add our dry ingredients and stir this all together
and basically that's it as soon as everything is incorporated and we can't
see any more flour we can go ahead and transfer this into a lightly buttered
baking dish and I'm just gonna do in one big rectangle because it's way easier
but if you wanted to fill up a couple of round cake pans and do a layer cake
instead feel free I mean you guys are after all the dwight schrutes of
desserts made with roots which reminds me assistant to the carrot cake maker is
not the same thing as assistant carrot cake maker
all right totally different pay scale but anyway we'll go ahead and transfer
that batter in at which point is pretty much ready for the oven but before that
happens let's go ahead and give it the old tap a tappa which hopefully will
bring any big air bubbles up to the surface and that's it once that's been
accomplished we can go ahead and transfer this into the center of a 350
degree oven for about 40 45 minutes or until it looks like this so yes it looks
done and totally gorgeous but we never just
want to go by looks so to be sure let's go ahead and poke it with a toothpick
and if it comes out clean you're done and if it comes out with a bunch of wet
batter on it you're not put it back in but this was perfect which means all we
have to do now is let it cool completely repeat cool completely before we frost
it if you're gonna frost it by the way which I hope you are I mean only a crazy
person needs cake without frosting and what I have here is our official food
wishes cream cheese frosting which I will of course provide a link to and
we'll go ahead and spread that evenly over our completely cool cake and just
for fun sometime try to spread this cream cheese frosting over a really hot
cake just to see what happens I don't want to spoil it but it's not good and
then what we'll do once this has been successfully frosted is pop it in the
fridge for at least a couple hours so that that frosting firms up nicely and
we get some beautiful clean cuts which is what I'm gonna pretend we did right
here even though I didn't and the reason for that is I really wanted to grab a
fork and see how this came out since it's been about 10 years since I made
this recipe but you really do want to wait for that frosting to firm up
because as you'll see as I cut this corner piece those edges of our frosting
are gonna be a little bit sloppy and messy not to mention we might end up
with an unsightly frosting fingerprint right in the middle which is never a
great look and by the way it's just not an appearance thing the taste and
texture of the frosting will be better if it's cold but despite the
aforementioned issues the cake itself was amazing and every bit as good as I
remembered it was alright there's basically two styles of this the light
airy cakey version and then the sort of dark dense very moist version and what I
enjoy something right in the middle of those which I think this was so I was
thrilled with how this came out but not necessarily how it looked so I let it
chill completely so I could get one more cut with nice clean edges you know for
the pictures which is why garnish the top with a little bit of chopped pecan
and a few slices of candied carrot which I will tell you how to do on the block
and even though I just did a tasting I figured as a professional I really
should take a couple more bites of the one I photoed so that's my story and I'm
sticking to it but anyway that's it my take on carrot cake
we got Easter coming up pretty soon and when I think of Easter I think of
rabbits and when I think of rabbits I think of carrots and when I think of
carrots I think of this delicious cake although why do we think of rabbits
again when we think of Easter oh that's right the eggs but anyway what I'm
trying to say is I really do hope you give this a try soon so head over to
food which is calm for all the ingredient amounts of more info as usual
and as always enjoy
you