I don’t make carrot cake often; when I was baking professionally making carrot cake meant grating 5-10 lbs of carrots per batch so my shoulders automatically tense up when the thought of making it even crosses my mind. But, it’s my friend Miguel’s favorite and all he asked for for his 50th birthday. So, today I broke out my old recipe and got to work.
In the spirit of revisiting an old standard I figured I would drag out one of the playlists I created for the morning bake off. Because we worked in an open kitchen, so customers could watch us bakers hard at work, we weren’t able to pick the music we listened to while we labored away. This meant that during the 3.5 hours between our 4:30 am call time and the 8 am open we would blast our own playlists to keep us awake and rocking during the bake off. Luckily the three of us bakers had relatively similar tastes in music and were always bringing in different collections of music to entertain and inform each other. Sometimes it got really silly – like the mornings when we’d all sing along at the top of our lungs – others the music was a good distraction from a frustrating morning of burnt cake or failed croissants. But the power of a good kitchen soundtrack was never more apparent than during my time as a baker. The particular playlist I revisited was one I created early on and it’s real mixed bag but I figured I’d share just for a laugh.
Say what you will music definitely keeps things interesting in the workplace. Ok now back to that carrot cake. I ended up tweaking my old recipe a bit because I was missing some ingredients but the result was delicious and I think I’ll be sticking to this version from now on.
Carrot Cake
Ingredients:
- 1 C AP flour
- 2 C whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp cardamom
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 lb butter, softened
- 1 C sugar
- 1 C light brown sugar, packed
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp dark rum
- 1 C unsweetened applesauce
- 1 C grated carrots, use the small holes on a box grater
Directions:
- Butter two9 x 2″ round cake pans and put parchment on the bottoms. Heat oven to 350˚.
- Sift together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt in a bowl and set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer cream the butter for 45 seconds then add the sugars and continue to mix for 10 seconds. Then stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix again. Repeat this 2-3 more times until the butter sugar mix is light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- Then add the eggs, one at a time, then the rum. Make sure you mix after each addition.
- While the mixer is on low add the flour combination in three turns alternating with the applesauce. Between each addition take the time to scrape the sides of the bowl.
- Finally, add the grated carrot and stir by hand to evenly distribute through the batter.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pans and put into the oven. Bake for 30-35 minutes until the top is golden and springs slightly to the touch.
- Cool for at least 10 minutes before removing from pans and allowing to cool further. When they’re room temperature you can go ahead and ice them.
For frosting I used a standard cream cheese frosting recipe with 1 tablespoon of bourbon vanilla sugar added in. The birthday honoree was over the moon which in my book means the cake was a success and I must confess I enjoyed the trip down memory lane.
Oh man, carrot cake is one of my food obsessions. I’ve had it every year for my birthday since sometime in elementary school. Never added rum, though, I’ll have to give this recipe a shot.
Okay, I swear to God that pun was unintentional.
I’ll take any and all puns intended or otherwise. Give this one a try, I’d love to hear what you think.