Carrot Cake ( Spiced)

Carrot cake is one of our family favorite cake, anytime of the year..sometimes with cream cheese icing and sometimes just plain, its just as good. What I like about carrot cake is that it has basic ingredients that most pantries at home would have, you do not have to go out of your way.

As usual, I love to track the origin of most of dishes that includes desserts too. So I found out that ;

"During the medieval period the sweetness were scares and very expensive. Carrot were used  to sweet cakes since they contained more sugar than other vegetables besides the sugar beets and they were of course were much easier to come by so they were used to make sweet desserts. The origins of carrot cake are disputed. Recipes for carrot cake occur as early as 1827. The oldest known recipe of carrot cake dates from 1892, in a book of the housekeeping school of Kaiseraugst, Switzerland. 

Carrot cake found its way in the United States in the early 1960 probably from Britain during the Second World War II; in  the United States Carrot cake became commonly available in restaurants and cafeterias   at first as novelty item, but people liked them so much that carrot cake became standard dessert fare.  

And there's always other tales to make it more interesting; Another story indicates that following the Second World War there was a glut of canned carrots in the United States. A business man named George C. Page hired master bakers to find uses for the cans of carrots. He somehow promoted the idea of carrot cake to help create a demand for the product.

Many carrot cake recipes include optional ingredients, such as kirsch, cinnamon, nuts or raisins . The most common icing on carrot cake is icing sugar and lemon juice or icing sugar and kirsch in Europe and an icing with sugar, butter and cream cheese in the United State.

As the cake is relatively moist, it can be conserved longer than many other types of cakes.

How did carrot cake and cream cheese become a paired item is yet a story to be told......

Well, there are so many recipes and variations of carrot cakes out there. For me personally its not a question of whose's right or wrong its a matter of what your taste buds prefer.

The recipe am sharing here is a combination of 3 very good recipes and I have extracted the best elements from each to make one awesome carrot cake recipe and very easy to make.

Yields 3 8" pans

Ingredients:

4 Cups All Purpose flour

2 Tbls Baking Powder

2 Tabls Baking Soda

2 tspn Cinammon powder

1 1/2 tspn ginger powder 

8 Whole Eggs

4 Cups Sugar

4 Cups Carrots

2 Cups + 2/3 canolla oil or veg oil

2 Tbls grated fresh ginger

2 Tbls orange zest

Nuts ( Pecan or walnuts) 1 cup or more 

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350F and prepare Three 8" pans with parchment paper or grease and flour the pans.

Sift flour, baking powder , baking soda, cinnamon powder and ginger powder all in one big bowl and set it aside.

With Paddle attachment beat in the eggs and combine for about a minute

Add sugar and mix well

Add carrots, beat

Add oil, beat

Add fresh ginger and orange zest continue to mix

Add all the flour at once and beat well ensure all ingredients are well combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake at 350 for 35-40 mins or till well done.

I finished my cake with cream cheese caramel frosting, I will add the link to the recipe here as soon as I have finished editing