Spice it Up
C
Carrot Cake BY MALLORY FRAYN
arrot cake: it’s a comfort food and it works for so many reasons. Carrots help to ensure that you’re never eating dry cake; warm spices in the batter warm the soul; and cream cheese makes for a frosting that is both decadent and nostalgic at the same time. All things considered, carrot cake recipes shouldn’t be tweaked too much because otherwise they can stray too far from the tried and true formula that so many of us know and love. So, if you’re looking to spice up your carrot cake, but still make it just like grandma used to, these adjustments can modernize classic recipes without straying too far from the originals.
all for taking our liberties with tradition. Other sweet root vegetables can be substituted in, just fine. Take beets for example, which can be grated in and add a beautiful, magenta colour to the finished cake. Quick tip: to help fix the colour of the beets, mix them with a bit of crushed vitamin C (one tablet will do, just pulverize it and stir it into the shredded beets so they stay “beet” red). Shredded parsnips can also be subbed in for carrots, or mixed half and half to maintain the cake’s orange colour and milder flavour. Along with the shredded veg, it doesn’t hurt to add some shredded fruit into the mix either. Just stick with apples and pears, substituted for up to half of the carrots, as not to add too much moisture to the batter and require adjustments to other aspects of the recipe.
The vegetables (and fruits)
The bits and bobs Carrot cake is almost one of those desserts that when loaded with enough
As the name suggests, carrot cake wouldn’t be carrot cake without carrots, however we’re
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accoutrements, it becomes nutritionally balanced enough to justify eating for breakfast or any other meal. Even if health isn’t your primary focus, most carrot cake recipes benefit from some combination of add-ins. Nuts and seeds like pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, walnuts, and pecans, are always welcome stirred into the batter. The same goes for dried fruit from standard raisins, to dried sour cherries, chopped dates, figs, and candied pineapple. Shredded coconut? Yes please. Oats? Absolutely. Within reason, pretty much anything goes. The icing/frosting
Whether you call it icing or frosting, a sweetened mix of cream cheese and butter is the proverbial icing on the cake when it comes to classic carrot cake. While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this recipe, plenty of other
