Gastronomy612′s Weblog

I hate carrots. I’ve always hated carrots. They lack any delectable flavor that I am pining for, as the crunch does not at all entice me, as potato chips do. The only part about carrots that make them desirable is the fact that they appear to be an easy snack. Despite all of this, I will still eat them under these caveats:

1) I will not direct my hatred toward a stewed carrot (soups, even you are protected)

2) Carrot cake (I can be tricked into it with all of the sugar in it)

I believe my first experience with carrot cake was in grade school during lunch. It might have even been birthday month and thus, the cake of choice. Regardless, I hadn’t had a homemade carrot cake…ever.

A few weeks ago, my office received a cake from another office for referring business their way. The email went out declaring a cheesecake was in the break room. Alas, it was nothing more than a nut and raisin filled carrot cake. Up until this realization, I was not interested, but my childhood quickly (as it often does) resurfaced and I had a slice.

Then I rated it a “meh” and declared I could make a much better carrot cake, so I did.

I did not even have so much as a recipe (OK, that’s really the only thing I needed) when I went to the grocery store. I fumbled around with my nearly-dead blackberry to find a recipe that did not require a million-and-three ingredients, and got the general idea of what I’d need. I got home and looked through all of my baking books only to find out I didn’t have any, or enough of a certain kind of oil. Blargh. Well, I did and found a recipe that contained the ingredients I had.

When I was at the grocery store, I also bought my first vegetable peeler in order to peel the carrots.  After inspecting the situation further, I realized that grating carrots seemed more simple…then I grated a pound of carrots to get the 3 cups that was required per the recipe.

After adding the carrots, which contained a lot more water than I’d ever imagine, the batter was very soupy.  After combining the ingredients, and mixing it up, and pouring half into my shoddy pan, I added some raisins that were not called for in the recipe.

I baked her for about 40-45 minutes, let it cool down, popped it out and let it cool on the racks some more while prepped the second layer in the same pan (I need to splurge and buy another, better pan.  Spring loaded even).  After washing out the mixing bowl, I made cream cheese frosting, which is no more than cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter and vanilla extract mixed together.  Eight ounces of cream cheese was enough to cover the two layered carrot cake, including the frosting between the layers.

And here it is.  It was delicious, and I far surpassed the free, nut infested cake that we received at work.

huzzah!

 a historical perspective