Carrot Cake with Maple Cream Cheese frosting

recipe snagged from the amazing smitten kitchen

Carrot cake is one of those great mysteries, like zucchini bread or pumpkin rolls, that does not taste like the ingredient for which it is named, and it’s probably because of this that it’s so tasty. After all, no matter how good some maple-glazed roasted carrots can be, they are not something I want for dessert.

Carrot cake is also one of those fine desserts that not only allow but encourage you to be delusional about what you’re shoving in your mouth in totally unacceptable portions because, hello! there are vegetables in it! Everyone knows that a vegetable-based dessert automatically negates any unhealthy qualities that, say, 2 cups of sugar or a cup of oil may contain, let alone a frosting based on entirely too many fats and sugar.

So, join me in my delusions (that giant slice you see? that was for me) and make a moist, delicious, totally 100% healthy (in my head) carrot cake that does not taste like carrots.

 

 

Honestly, since Deb from Smitten Kitchen already made and posted this recipe there is no need for me to do so, because I am pretty convinced she can do no culinary wrong, but maybe you’ll get something from my experience anyway.

Carrot Cake with Maple Cream Cheese frosting

Note: while her recipe is intended for cupcakes she helpfully included instructions for a layer cake, for which I am grateful since I fail so hard at cupcakes.

You will need:

2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups canola oil
4 large eggs
3 cups grated peeled carrots
1 cups coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)
1/2 cup raisins (optional)

(frosting recipe follows cake recipe)

 

Preheat oven to 350°F.* Grab a bag of carrots from the refrigerator and stare at them, knowing that Deb recommends finely shredding them and yet also knowing that you have a perfectly good shredder plate for your food processor that would make quick work of the job. Have a moment of temporary insanity that demands you go with Deb’s recommendation. Spend next twenty years peeling and shredding with a hand-held fine grater enough carrots (about 6 large) to equal 3 cups.

(hyperbole note: it actually only took about 15 minutes and was not bad at all)

Once your carrots are a shredded orange mess, combine your flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger in a bowl and give it a whisk to mix it all together. Toss your sugar and obscene amount of canola oil in a separate bowl and whisk until the sugar is saturated. Add an egg at a time, whisking after each to get it all good and eggy. Is an egg an emulsifier? I can’t seem to keep these things straight.

Once your sugar mixture has been thoroughly eggified, add your flour mixture and stir it until all the flour has been incorporated. I have helpfully included a photo that will show you what this process looks like, just in case:

At this point, feel free to stir in your carrots, though I should warn you that if you choose not to add carrots you are no longer actually making carrot cake. "But Alicia," you might wonder, "what kind of cake would it be if I didn’t add carrots?" I think it would just be cake, and if you don’t like carrots why the hell are you making this recipe? Let’s move on.

With the carrots in the mix, and the raisins and nuts if you chose to use them (I did, but I used pecans because they are delicious – are you a pee-can or peh-cahn person? inquiring minds…) you will have a bowl of glorious mess that vaguely resembles a substance you might find somewhere unsavory, like a fraternity bathroom after a party. I am unfortunately not exaggerating.

I know. I wish I was wrong, too. I made the layer cake so play along with me. Grease up two 9" round cake pans with butter (I used margarine, mostly because I was too lazy to unwrap another stick of butter) , line the bottoms with a round of wax paper, butter the paper and shake some flour around to coat it all. Tap out the excess. Fill the rounds with an equal amount of batter.

If you are ridiculous like me, you actually weighed out equal portions (2 lbs, 4 oz if you must know). If you are a less ridiculous person, you could eyeball it to a reasonable guess. Pop it in the oven for 40 minutes or so, stick a tester in the center to see if it’s done and if it is, take it out of the oven.

Let it cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then remove from pans to cool completely. You really don’t want to frost a warm cake, no matter how tempting it may be. Plus, you’ll want to even out at least one side for frosting and layering and that’s a lot easier with a cooled cake. I took too many pictures to make up for my lack of earlier prep work, so have an additional cake photo after it has been removed from the pans.

I’m sorry. I just didn’t want it to go to waste, you know? Anyway, it’s time to make the frosting.

You will need:

Two (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cup pure maple syrup

Do you remember how on tests they’d always start out by saying read all the directions or questions before answering, and there would be some trick at the end so if you didn’t read it all first you’d get to the last question and it would be some instruction designed to trip you up, like instead of filling in the circles you were supposed to underline them? This is kind of like that, because if you didn’t read this part you now have to wait until your cream cheese and butter have softened to make the frosting. Unintentional fail on my part and I apologize for it. But for the rest of you, here are two ways to move forward.

Deb’s recipe says to combine all four ingredients on medium speed in a stand mixer. I did this, starting on the lowest speed because have you ever tried throwing some confectioners’ sugar in a stand mixer on medium speed? Your kitchen ends up looking like the aftermath of a wild night at Lindsay Lohan’s house. I think there’s still sugar in the joints of my cabinetry. After a few minutes, it all comes together and it’s fine that way.

I do think, however, that beating the cream cheese and butter together first and then gradually adding the powdered sugar and syrup would give you better control of the texture. This is a very creamy frosting, and if you’re used to buttercream it might throw you off (it threw me off, as I will explain in a bit) even after you let it "set up" in the fridge. I also wonder how this would be if you only used 1 8 oz block of cream cheese, or even 12 oz total and used 4 or so ounces of heavy cream instead and whipped the crap out of all of it if it wouldn’t have an even better taste and consistency. Or maybe even some pudding. Just some random thoughts there.

Anyway, so make your frosting and throw it in the fridge for 20 minutes or so to set up. Kill some time by not letting that leftover beater frosting go to waste and put it to good use on a nearby sugar cookie.

After you finish your cookie, it’s time to level off one of your cakes for layering. Precise people will likely have a tool for this such as this. Alton Brown fans may remember that his version was made with a hacksaw blade, if I recall correctly. While I no doubt will own such a thing at some point in my future, I went with the imprecise method of the eyeballed bread knife leveling. No one in this house cares if my cake is lopsided except me, so it works for us as I can cope with it. For now.

It looks OK, right? It doesn’t even matter anyway because I’m flipping it over and frosting the bottom. I am under the distinct impression that this is not the correct way to frost a cake, but I don’t give a damn.

I did however give enough of a damn to line the bottom of my platter with waxed paper though. This will let me make a mess while I frost the cake without letting me get frosting all over the plate. Note that this is not a single sheet, but four strips of paper that can be easily slid out from underneath the cake for that clean, fresh look.

So, being a genius, I decide to not be as impatient as I normally am by trying a crumb coat. Now, with a buttercream frosting the crumb coat will give you a smoother finish for the rest of your frosting – it’s a thin layer slathered on and allowed to set so as to keep crumbs in check and provide a smooth surface for the final layer and any decorating. As it turns out, this cream cheese frosting does not set like a buttercream so I basically wasted an hour waiting for it to harden a little when it had no intention of doing so.

So I just slapped the rest of it on and patiently waited for dinner to come and go so that I could try it out. As it happens, folks, this is a damn fine cake that would be perfectly edible without the frosting, and in fact would make a really good breakfast loaf if you ask me. I may in fact try it that way next time, with a maple glaze instead of frosting and some oats and/or whole wheat flour for additional bulk. This frosting is not buttercream and being my father’s daughter (he makes delicious frosting) I am definitely partial to that texture, but this creamy stuff does go very well and the maple syrup adds just the right flavor to something that would otherwise be overly cream-cheesy. It’s also a fast, simple recipe – just imagine if you bought pre-shredded carrots, it would literally take an hour from start to finish. Try it out, let me know how it goes!

 

* high altitude note (4000 ft) – I added an additional tablespoon of flour and preheated the oven to 375, turning it back to 350 when the cakes were in the oven. Whether this was necessary, I have no idea, but I hate risking it with cake.