A Cake Late, & A Dollar Short

I am "A Cake Late, & A Dollar Short." Playing catch up since I didn't start the August Carrot Cake until Sunday, September 27. I enlisted the help of my husband, Tom to do the "intern" work. He was assigned the dry ingredients and grating carrots. I have to say that he did a good job AND did all the washing up.


The recipe was easy to follow and the only thing I would change is purchasing dates that were already pitted and chopped. I spent most of the time prepping so many dates to yield the half cup required. The cake turned out lovely. On Monday I took one-third of it to the office and it quickly disappeared. Tuesday morning only a 3x3 cube remains, thanks to Tom. It 's hard to believe that there's no sugar in the recipe. I did have several requests for the recipe as well.

Nude Carrot Cake - Go Get Dressed

Nude Carrot Cake -go get dressed

I think, I had better explain, why my poor carrot cake and most of the other cakes I make, walk around without their frosting. I bake, mostly for my husband, and he does not like anything chocolate of gushy. His cakes do not get frosted or glazed or iced. They shine on their own, I hope. Actually, he likes almost all of his food, "pure". Mashed potatoes without gravy, candied carrots without the glaze, salads without the dressings unless very subtle, pasta with a minimum of sauce........I think you get the idea. Fortunately, my children are more like their Mom and eat all that fattening stuff.

Since, he does not eat chocolate of any kind, chocolate goodies, usually get the works. They are like my toys because I can play with them. I can create and glorify the wonders of chocolate. That makes up for all those nude cakes, I usually make.

I admit, I recently baked him the most delicious apple bread and put the glaze on but it got absorbed and I am guessing that he was not aware of it. The glaze is what gives it the taste and he liked the taste.

If you like carrot cake, you should like this......... It seems to me that carrot cake is an all time favorite. Maybe, this is because it is a moist cake, goes down easily and with lots of flavor.

This cake has pecans but carrot cake lends itself to lots of choices. I like to add golden raisins, craisins, coconut or different types of nuts.

Carrot Cake
Ingredients:

4 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

3 cup flour

1 cup chopped pecans

4 cups grated carrots

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Although I do not make the frosting, I am going to include the recipe for it, for those of you who want to adorn the carrot cake.

1/2 stick margarine, softened

one pound confectionery sugar

8 ounces cream cheese

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat the oven 350 degrees.

Chop the pecans.

Combine dry ingredients together in large bowl.

Add eggs and oil.

Mix until just blended and then add the carrots and the pecans.

Do not overbeat and do mix by hand.

Frosting:

Using a beater, mix cream cheese and margarine until smooth.

Add sugar and vanilla.

Blend well.

When cake has cooled, spread the frosting on.

If you want to decorate the frosting, add any decorations you want.

I like the little flower shaped ones.

Although, I used the golden sugar sprinkles on another carrot cake and it sparkled and matched the color of the carrot cake. It made an attractive picture even without frosting.

Concave Carrot Cake

Baking at high altitude is challenging; cakes fall randomly, cookies can be extremely dry and things like brownies, that should be pretty easy, can sometimes turn into giant hockey pucks. But for my Have the Cake challenge this month, I didn't think that altitude was challenging enough.

Instead, I thought it would be even more challenging to make this month's carrot cake challenge wheat and gluten-free. Several years ago my sister was diagnosed with a wheat allergy and the world of baked items, as well as most foods, changed dramatically for her. Wheat is in amazing amount of things where you wouldn't think it would be: soy sauce, pudding, hard candies, etc. Anything that says it contains "modified food starch" has wheat as an ingredient.

So as a treat to my sister I thought I would make this month's carrot cake for her, using my "Gluten-free Baking Classics" cookbook, by Annalise Roberts.

The recipe, which I'll spare you, involves a few key ingredients, which turn out to be real pain-in-the-butt to procure. The flour replacement in the recipe involves mixing three ingredients: extra finely ground brown rice flour, potato starch (which is different than potato flour) and tapioca flour. Plus, the recipe also requires Xanthum Gum, also a pain to find.

None of these ingredients were available at my local grocery store, so I hiked off to a local natural grocers to find them. Fortunately, they had all the weird ingredients, plus organic carrots and an organic lemon that was so green I almost mistook it for a lime. As a side note, I found it incredibly amusing that upon exiting the natural grocers I was bombarded with the mouth-watering smell of cooking bacon - there's an IHOP across the parking lot - if I were a vegetarian I would have to reconsider after smelling that bacon!

Here is a picture of my main wheat-free ingredients:

The few, the expensive...the ingredients

After the flour substitutes and the Xanthum gum (which is described on the package as "the outer layer of an inactive bacterium..." yummy!), the rest of the ingredients are the usual ones for a carrot cake. The cookbook does not include any high altitude instructions and I figured I should just follow the recipe and see what happens. After a lifetime of baking at this altitude I did feel a little squeamish adding 1 1/2 cups of canola oil and four eggs since this seems like a bit too much moisture for 6000 feet, but I pushed forward.

After mixing all of the flour and liquid ingredients I folded in the grated carrots, coconut and chopped pecans (I substituted pecans for walnuts since both my sister and I are allergic to walnuts). It looks like normal cake batter, doesn't it?:

Folding in the good stuff

After that I threw it into two of my very special cake pans:

Cake Pan

If you ever see these and you bake a lot, buy them! They have a lovely sliding cutter that circles around the pan making it so easy to get the cake out...

And just so Ellebee doesn't think that she's the only one who can make a mess of a kitchen, here's my proof that I can do it too:

Messy Kitchen

At the end of the allotted baking time, I retrieved the cake layers from the oven to find, well, this:

The Sunken Cakes

Those cakes sunk like the Titanic, and honestly, it's my own fault for not cutting down on the oil and eggs. I hate that when I'm wrong!

I thought maybe the cream cheese frosting would help, but I was wrong again:

Frosted Cake

And then I thought that I would see a difference once I added the toasted coconut:

Frosted with Toasted Coconut

Don't worry, no need to adjust your monitor; I didn't see a difference either. It's still an ugly, concave carrot cake...

It didn't look much better sliced and on a plate either:

Monster on a plate

Instead, it reminds me of those weird monsters in the desert scene in Beetle Juice.

Despite it's fearsome looks however, it tasted quite good and I think could easily fool a non-wheat allergic person that they were eating normal carrot cake.

I took the whole ugly thing over to my sister's, and while she refused to let me take a picture of her enjoying her first carrot cake in 10 years, she did love the cake. My nephew Brendan liked the frosting and consented to a picture:

Brendan and the Cake

All in all, I had fun making the cake, my sister really enjoyed eating the cake and it tasted like real carrot cake, without any wheat in sight. Next time though, I'll cut down on the eggs and the oil and hope that I can make a pretty cake, instead of the concave monster that came out of my oven...

Carrot Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

One of the benefits that comes along with learning to cook and/or bake is that you never have to buy presents for anyone ever again. Instead, you can just cook them their favorite meal or bake them their favorite treat. And usually, if the person is worth the sweat and toil, they will offer to share their present with you. This, my friends, is a true exemplification of the gift that keeps on giving.

It was my friend Anu's birthday this past Saturday and when I asked her what she wanted she promptly responded, "Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting." A girl after my own heart. Can you see why we are such good friends?

As fun as carrot cake is to make, I decided to go with cupcakes instead. My roommates and I were hosting a room party the night of Anu's birthday (actually we were the first stop on a room crawl - kind of like a pub crawl but with rooms in our apartment building) and it is much easier to serve cupcakes to large amounts of people than it is to serve cake. More of a self-contained chaos kind of deal.

So I spent Friday night grating 3 cups of carrots by hand and developing carpal tunnel syndrome and Saturday afternoon teaching myself how to pipe frosting out of a ziploc bag. In the end, though, it was all worth it because Anu almost fainted from happiness when she bit into the first one, proclaiming them the best carrot cupcakes she has ever eaten. I maintain that anything tastes good when you smother it with cream cheese frosting, but she's right. The cupcakes were pretty damn good.
Carrot Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
Serves 24, adapted from Smitten Kitchen

2 cups AP flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
4 large eggs
3 cups grated carrots
1 lb neufchatel or regular cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
1 1/4 cup confectioner's sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Line 2 cupcake tins with cupcake liners or grease the tins.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg in a large bowl. Whisk the sugar and oil and applesauce in a second bowl until well-blended. Whisk in the eggs one at a time. Mix the flour mixture into the wet mixture. Stir in the carrots.

3. Divide batter among cupcake molds. Bake for 14-18 minutes (longer for me - about 20-25 minutes) or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool completely before icing.

4. In a stand mixer, beat together the cream cheese, butter, confectioner's sugar, and maple syrup. Chill for at least 20 minutes and then pipe or spread onto the cupcakes.

NOTE - I like my cream cheese frosting to have a little bit of tang to it, which is why there isn't that much confectioner's sugar in it. Some people like a sweeter frosting and I have seen recipes that call for a whole box of confectioner's sugar. Add it based on your own taste.

Colorado Carrot Cake

Because I had several factors working against me, I, too, deviated from the recommended Have the Cake recipe this month. First, my daughter is just 7 weeks old, which means I was baking in the very short window between feedings and changings. I had about an hour to prep the cake so I could put it in to bake just before her next feeding. Second, while I hope to be able to play around with future recipes and adapt them for my altitude (about 9000 ft. above sea level), I knew I'd only have time this month to make this cake once, and I wanted it to be edible. So, instead of the recipe Rena posted about, I chose a carrot cake recipe from Susan Purdy's Pie in the Sky, a cookbook specifically for bakers living at high altitudes. The book is actually really cool - it includes measurements for sea level, 3000 ft., 5000 ft., 7000 ft., and 10,000 ft. I usually have the best luck using the 7000 ft. measurements and adding a bit more time on the recommended baking time.

Baby fed, changed, and strapped into her infant seat and placed on the counter so she could watch me bake (not recommended safe baby practice, but I swear I was never more than 5 inches from her the entire time and she's not very mobile yet), we got started.

I am notoriously bad at preparing to bake, and since we don't have a grocery store within half an hour, I sometimes have to adjust recipes just because I haven't picked up the proper ingredients during the weekly shopping trip. For some reason, I thought I only needed three carrots, but the recipe actually called for between 8-10. Whoops! I had to supplement with the completely hairy carrots Nate had in the bottom drawer of the fridge leftover from the pregnancy juice making extravaganza.

Piper and the hairy carrot

I fished the food processor out of the pantry. I can't believe I've never used the food processor to grate anything before. So fast! So easy! Of course, after grating the recommended 8 carrots, I had way more carrots than I needed. I also got to use the nut chopper my mother bought me off an infomercial 10 years ago. This thing never gets to see much action, except at Christmas. So many gadgets - I love this cake!

I'm a terribly messy baker, so by the time I was done mixing the batter (eggs, olive oil, carrots, walnuts, sugar, wheat germ, flour, baking soda, sald, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and vanilla), the kitchen was wrecked. But, because of the aforementioned gadgets, I actually had time to clean the kitchen before the baby started squalling!

Messy kitchen

I'd never seen a carrot cake made in a bundt pan, so I was a little nervous about that part. I've had bad luck getting cakes out of this type of pan intact, and there were some very weird directions about lining the bottom of the pan with parchment paper or tinfoil, which I experimented with and then discarded, choosing instead to coat the sucker with half a bottle of PAM. I stuck the cake in the oven for 45 minutes, came back after Piper was done eating, and voila! Perfect cake. I let it cool, then completely ruined the healthiness of the recipe by coating it with frosting consisting of nothing but cream cheese, butter, and powdered sugar (to be honest, this frosting is really the only part of carrot cake I like). I tested it out on Nate and Kari, who both approved, and I've been able to serve it to a variety of guests who've come up to meet Piper this week. Delicious!

Grandma's Carrot Cake

I have always wanted to make a Carrot Cake with cream cheese frosting! So, I chose not to use the recipe posted here, and instead made a traditional Grandma style Carrot Cake.

I found Paula Deen's to be the one I would work on. I have already made her Banana Cake with cream cheese frosting a few times before and it was a hit!

I did not use nuts being that my husband is allergic and I added in Coconut and crushed Pineapple to make it even more special. I also cut her recipe in half because her cakes are so huge!

It was lots of fun since I love baking. Grating carrots was a bit of a pain, however the rest of the prep and baking went smoothly.

Here it goes...



Ingredients

Cooking spray for pans
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups grated carrots
1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained
1 cup flaked coconut

Frosting:

1 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, room temperature
Half stick salted butter, room temperature
Half of (16-ounce) box powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract


Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray 2 (9-inch) round pans

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and
salt. Add eggs and vegetable oil. Using a hand mixer, blend until
combined. Fold in the pineapple, carrots, and coconut. Pour batter
into prepared pans.

Bake for approximately 45 minutes. Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes. Remove from pans, place on waxed paper and allow to cool completely before frosting.

While cake is baking prepare the frosting

Add all ingredients into a medium bowl and beat until
fluffy using a hand mixer. Spread frosting on top of
each cake layer. Stack the cakes on a serving plate and serve.

adapted from Paula Deen's Recipe


This cake was totally fabulous and delicious!! It was moist and not too sweet. The added pineapple and coconut really gave it nice coloring and flavor. My husband loved it too, I did not tell him what was in it and he guessed, which was pretty cool. I plan on sharing this with some friends. And I will definitely make this one again!

Thanks Rena!

Thumbs Up!

Okay-so I also loved this cake (but it really is bread). I decided to do a few tweaks based on other comments from the original blog. First, I eliminated the nuts. I'm not a huge fan of nuts AND I wanted to share with co-workers one of whom has an allergy. I was a little nervous that the texture would be way off but it still turned out well. Then, taking off on the already healthy version, I substituted the eggs with unsweetened chunky applesauce which helped add some texture. I then used coconut oil instead of butter and added flaked coconut for even more texture.
I had an awful time mashing the dates so they were probably a bit too chunky.I tried using my little hand held mixer but the motor could not handle the gooey-goodness! Everything else was super easy to mash-up, grate and stir together. The batter was super-thick! I baked it for about an hour. The knife never went completely clean but I think that was my fault with the applesauce. Since all of the ingredients were safe to be eaten raw, I let the bread stay a little mushy in the center. Once it sat and cooled, it was perfect(I took the dog for a long walk so it had a chance to cool)!
I love how dense this was and it definitely had a great flavor. I plan on trying it out with zucchini next but I will try it with a less banana/more shredded zucchini ratio!
Good choice Rena!

Baked Goodness

You've heard the story from Rena already, but I'm here to tell you that this cake was pretty easy to make and tasted great! The most challenging part from my perspective was mixing the date paste and melted butter. I thought I was going to smoosh and stir forever. It took ages before I even saw progress and had my doubts about the ability to get these two ingredients combined. Obviously in the end those, and all the other ingredients, came together.

The cake baked for a little longer than we originally put it in for. We weren't quite sure how long it would take, so we underestimated and then checked it every ten minutes or so. In the end, I think it was about 55 minutes before our toothpick came out clean.

It smelled so good when it came out that we teased that we'd have to put it up out of reach of Austin, otherwise she wouldn't be able to resist it while we were out getting lunch. In the end it was Todd, Rena, and me who couldn't resist. Even after a big burrito lunch, we each held out about five minutes before having a slice.

The first Have the Cake month was a roaring success!

Bananas and Carrots and Dates! Oh My!

I guess it's fitting that I should start this off since this was my idea :) I LOVE this cake. I think it's been decided that this is more of a bread than a cake but no matter what you call it, it's delicious! The cake is dense and very rich.

I was lucky to have a buddy to bake with this month. Fellow HTC baker, Tori, came to visit this weekend so we decided to bake our cake together. I felt like I was prepared for the event for weeks and on the day of, I realized that I was missing a few key ingredients, mainly the carrots. Kind of important, no?

We set out all the ingredients and Tori wrote out the recipe on the kitchen chalkboard so we didn't destroy any paper with messy hands. Please note her artwork on the chalkboard! Tori mixed all the dry ingredients while I mashed up some dates for the paste. They were very easy to mash. If you've ever dealt with dates, they are incredibly sticky and have long pits inside which need to be removed. Tori was melting the butter for the dates to soak in and I got started on the bananas and carrots. A few weeks ago, another baker from the group, Gerri, gave me a great tip to freeze bananas that are going brown and can't be eaten at that time. I had a bunch frozen in the freezer that I mashed up and then put some carrots through the food processor.

We mixed everything together and stirred for a while. The batter is very thick. We spooned the whole thing into a square cake pan and into the oven to bake. If I remember correctly it baked for almost an hour. We set it out to cool for also around an hour. Had we stayed in the house and not gone out to get lunch, it would have cooled for 2 minutes before we cut into it.



Originally, we were going to frost half with cream cheese frosting and the other half with vanilla frosting. We ate about a 1/4 of the cake without frosting and then decided to see what it would taste like with the vanilla. I think I prefer it without but it definitely tasted more like cake with frosting. Can frosting really be bad? No.

There is a strong banana presence and can easily be called a banana bread with some carrots as opposed to a carrot cake. It's surprisingly sweet for a cake with no sugar. The dates definitely do their job. I love it. It's hearty, thick and filling.


The prep was fairly easy and it felt like we put it all together very quickly. I'm excited to make it again and possibly experiment with some other ingredients. I'm so glad I had a buddy to bake with this month and I look forward to hearing about all your baking experiences!

August Challenge - Carrot Cake

It's time for our first Have the Cake challenge! I had a very hard time deciding what we should make. I searched around for any recipe that would grab me and about two weeks ago, I found it. The recipe I picked is for carrot cake. Now, there was some hesitation in picking carrot cake because I have no idea if everyone likes carrot cake! Something with chocolate would have probably been an easy crowd pleaser but the purpose of this club is to try something new and have fun. The beauty of this recipe is that I believe with a little creativity and recipe adjustment, this could be banana cake or zucchini cake/bread. The reason I fell in love with this cake is that it's naturally sweetened with fruit.

After I decided to start this baking club, it occurred to me that in a short two months, I'd have to fit into a bridesmaid dress for my sister's wedding. I kept that in mind when picking a recipe so the ingredients and the overall health factor of this cake very much appealed to me. I found this recipe on a blog that I love called 101 Cookbooks written by Heidi Swanson. Heidi was nice enough to let me use her beautiful photo for this post.

I've read a lot of the comments on the original post -click here- which have included some variations to the recipe. One comment said that the cake tastes very much like banana bread with carrots as opposed to a straight carrot cake. One reader substituted applesauce for butter and was successful. I would suggest reviewing the original post and comments before baking for some ideas and reactions.

Please review this post for blogging info and this post if you'd like to join the club.

**You can use this recipe or feel free to use another carrot cake recipe.**

Let's get baking!

CARROT CAKE
Source: 101 Cookbooks

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (or all-purpose flour)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts
4 ounces unsalted butter, heated until just melted
1/2 cup dried dates, seeded and finely chopped into a paste
3 ripe bananas (1 1/4 cups), mashed well
1 1/2 cups grated carrots (about 3 medium)
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt (2% or lowfat is ok)
2 eggs, lightly whisked

6 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
3 tablespoons agave nectar or maple syrup (or to taste)

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter a 9x5x3 / 8-cup loaf pan (or 8x8 cake pan) and line it with parchment paper.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the walnuts and set aside.

Stir the dates into the melted butter, breaking up the dates a bit.

In a separate bowl combine the bananas and carrots. Stir in the date-butter mixture, breaking up any date clumps as you go. Whisk in the yogurt and the eggs. Add the flour mixture and stir until everything just comes together. Spoon into the prepared pan. Bake for about 50 - 60 minutes or until a toothpick tests clean in the center of the cake - it'll be less if you are using a standard cake pan. Remove from oven and let cool.

While the cake is baking whip together the cream cheese and agave nectar (I'm certain you can use sugar instead of agave to sweeten). Taste. If you like your frosting sweeter adjust to your liking. When the cake has completely cooled frost the top of the cake.

Makes one carrot cake.