Carrot Cake - Easy, Moist, and Tasty

Hi, folks.👋 It's been a while. I hope you're all doing well and cooking up good food and good trouble. 

I've been writing regularly again for my new project, Feed Your Fight: Recipes for Resistance and I figured, why not post something new to the 'ol Garden of Eating, too? 

So here goes! Warning that this post twists and turns through my journey to avoid wasting food before leaving on a vacation but I will ultimately get to the carrot cake recipe, promise. If you get impatient, though, you can click here to skip right to the recipe.

Recently, thanks to a stupendous supermarket brain fart, I found myself with not one, but two, enormous bags of carrots. With a trip looming, I went into overdrive, trying to figure out how to use them up. 

Am I the only one out there whose pre-travel anxiety manifests in attempting to use up all perishable food and making sure the house is clean? After years of navel-gazing, I've realized that some part of me assumes I may never return from the trip due to succumbing to an unfortunate accident while I'm away and that I'd hate for anyone to a) judge my housekeeping as lacking, or b) have to deal with a messy house or rotting food. It's nuts, I realize, but there you have it. Join me on this anxiety-fueled ride that resulted in some tasty things and very little food waste.

Inspired by both an Ottolenghi recipe I spotted in the Guardian and a recipe in Anne-Marie's great new book, The Zero Waste Chef Cookbook, I started by making a big pot of ribollita - a first for me but one which I will repeat as it was so delicious.  

This hearty Italian peasant soup is a perfect way to clean-out-your-fridge. In went half a jar of tomato sauce, some celery, a couple of onions that weren't getting any younger, a small amount of fresh thyme leftover from making this lovely Provencal vegetable tian, a potato whose skin had turned green, a big bunch of the aforementioned carrots, and a jar of dried white beans that had been gracing a shelf in the pantry for a while. I topped each bowl with toasted stale bread croutons and grated cheddar cheese that would otherwise have ended up in the compost pile. 

It was really good! But after we'd licked our bowls clean, there were still a shit ton of carrots left in the crisper. Back to the drawing board.

Next, I made a big dish of tzimmes to bring to a Passover seder, using up more carrots along with some dried prunes leftover from my younger son making chicken marbella - my favorite recipe from The Silver Palate Cookbook, and some dried apricots leftover from my older son making these apricot ginger scones, along with the juice of several blood oranges that had clearly reached the end of the line. The tzimmes was delicious! 

Unfortunately, a gang of carrots was still jockeying for space in the crisper. 

I found my third and final source of inspiration came in the form of this recipe for carrot cupcakes that Lindsay shared in a recent Pinch of Yum email. 

WHY NOT BAKE A CARROT CAKE?! 

In addition to using up more carrots, the frosting for this cake also used up a package of cream cheese, a bit of heavy cream, and the zest and juice of an orange that had been languishing in the fridge. And it was delicious...

Out of habit and a little bit of laziness, I turned to the recipe in The Joy of Cooking since this much-spattered and broken-spined volume rests in state in the cookbook holder on my counter. 

As I remembered from the last time I made it, this carrot cake is moist and very tasty. I hope you enjoy it. My version omitted both the raisins and the walnuts as they are disliked by members of my family but if your loved onest enjoy them, go for it!

After all those months of dark and cold, this is a perfect sweet treat to celebrate the return of the sun and flowers, and green growing things. And bunnies. Let's not forget the bunnies.🐇

CARROT CAKE (adapted a teeny bit from The Joy of Cooking)
Makes one two layer cake, serves 12

Ingredients

For the cake

• 1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour 
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil 
• 3 large eggs  
• 1 1/2 cups peeled and finely grated carrots  
• 1 cup walnuts, finely chopped (optional) 
• 1 cup golden raisins (optional) 
• 1 cup cane sugar 
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda 
• 1 tsp baking powder 
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon 
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves 
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg 
• 1/2 tsp ground allspice 
• 1/2 tsp sea salt

For the frosting

• 8 ozs cream cheese
• 5 Tbsps softened butter
• 2 tsps vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 cups powdered icing sugar
• 1-2 tsps freshly grated lemon or orange zest

Directions

1. Have all ingredients at room temperature, 68°F to 70°F. 
2. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9×2-inch round pans or two 8×8-inch pans or one 13×9-inch pan, or line the bottom with wax paper. 
3. In a large bowl, throroughly whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, all-spice, and salt. 
4. Add the vegetable oil and eggs, and stir together well with a rubber spatula or beat on low speed. Stir in the carrots, walnuts, and raisins (if using). 
5. Scrape the batter into the pans(s) and spread evenly. 
6. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. 
7. Remove from the oven and cool for a few minutes, until you can handle with ease, then unmold the cakes, turn them out onto a rack and allow to cool fully. 
8. Make the frosting. Beat the cream cheese in a medium bowl with the butter and vanilla until combined. Gradually add the powdered sugar, adding more until you reach a consistency and sweetness that fits your taste. Beat in the citrus zest.
9. Frost and fill the cakes with the cream cheese frosting.