“Best Ever” Carrot Cake?

If you follow me on Twitter, you know I spent a couple hours on Monday baking a carrot cake, at my daughter-in-law’s request. I don’t recall how, exactly, I was conned roped cajoled into convinced to do this, but I think I simply volunteered.¹ So since she and Alison are up here for the better part of a month, sans Eric, I promised her back in June I’d bake her a fantastic carrot cake.

Until today, I don’t believe I’ve ever baked a carrot cake. My wife does 99.9 percent of the baking in our house, but that doesn’t mean I can’t follow a recipe, and I do know my way around the kitchen.²

So when I accepted this challenge task, I decided to go all out. I did a web search for "best carrot cake" and settled on this cake, from allrecipes.com.³ I read many of the almost-700 comments on the cake, and decided to adapt a couple of the (relatively minor) variations.

Here, with my notes and variations, is the recipe I used:

INGREDIENTS

* 6 cups grated carrots (use baby carrots for sweeter flavor)
* 1 cup brown sugar
* 1 cup raisins (I used golden)
* 4 eggs
* 1 1/2 cups white sugar
* 1 cup vegetable oil
* 4 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 1 cup crushed pineapple, drained (soak raisins in juice)
* 3 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
* 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
* 1/4 teaspoon each: allspice, nutmeg, cloves, ginger

DIRECTIONS

1. In a medium bowl, combine grated carrots and brown sugar. Set aside for 60 minutes, then stir in raisins.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 10 inch or three 9-inch cake pans.
3. In a large bowl, beat eggs until light. Gradually beat in the white sugar, oil and vanilla. Stir in the pineapple. Combine the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, stir into the wet mixture until absorbed. Finally stir in the carrot mixture and the walnuts. Pour evenly into the prepared pans.
4. Bake for 45 to 50 (9-inch pans: 30-40) minutes in the preheated oven, until cake tests done with a toothpick. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan. When completely cooled, frost with cream cheese frosting.

Note: Carrots may be drained before adding brown sugar, if a less-moist cake is desired.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

1 stick butter, softened
8oz cream cheese, softened
4 to 6 cups powdered sugar (for this recipe, I used about 5 1/2 cups)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Cream together butter and cream cheese until smooth, without any lumps, and has a slight gloss. Add vanilla extract. Slowly add sugar, increasing speed to incorporate as much air as possible. If frosting is too thick, thin with a tablespoon or so of milk or half-and-half.

YIELD: 12-16 servings, depending on cake pan size.

“Best Ever?” Not Quite

So how was it? It was very good: I’d make it again, but not the “best ever.”

The texture was dense but moist. The ladies would have preferred a “cakier” (i.e., more airy) cake, but I liked the texture just fine. However, I think cutting down the carrots from 6 cups to 4 would make it not quite so dense, without hurting the moistness at all (I would definitely NOT drain the carrots in this case).

As for flavor, the cloves were definitely noticeable, and the combination of allspice and ginger was apparent too. I think next time I’d omit those three ingredients (which were one of the modifications I made), and stick with just the cinnamon and nutmeg.

I’m also not sure about the pineapple. It doesn’t hurt the cake at all, and no one complained, but I just don’t think it added much at all. However, soaking the raisins in the pineapple juice for an hour definitely plumped them up, making them the perfect texture for the cake.