Wednesday, February 3, 2010

No news is good news

To start with the things you’re probably wondering about:
1. I am still pregnant, and have yet to go into labor.
2. My mom is here with us. She is doing well, and we are all doing fine, mostly looking at my stomach and trying to guilt the baby into coming out.
3. Given (2) and the fact that temperatures here have been ranging from -2C to -21C, the house has never been cleaner.
On to less frustrating things – I think I found my perfect carrot cake recipe. Despite the fact that I love carrot cake, and that I’ve made plenty of carrot cakes from plenty of recipes, until now I didn’t find a recipe that made me think I can stop searching for a new one. Some of them were really good – but still… But this one… I really don’t think I have a reason to try another recipe again (note: I didn’t right “ever again”, because that would be way to final).
The recipe is from Dorie Greenspan’s “Baking from my home to yours”. The original is a three layer cake with cream cheese frosting. With only 2 cake pans and no really need to consume large amounts of sweetened cream cheese, I made my cake in a rectangular Pyrex pan and planned to put just a bit of frosting, but once the cake was done and I tasted a little bit, I decided that the frosting is purely optional. Oh… one last thing, because of (2) above I changed the spices in the recipe just a bit. The original had 2 teaspoons of cinnamon and nothing else, my version you’ll find below.
So here it is – the recipe:
My perfect carrot cake
Ingredients
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking power
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cardomon
½ teaspoon ground English pepper
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¾ teaspoons salt
3 cups grated carrots (about 9 US sized carrots)
½ cup coarsely chopped pecans
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup moist raisins
2 cups sugar
1 cup oil
4 large eggs

Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 325F
2. Wisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices
3. In a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the sugar and oil together on medium speed until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time and continue to beat until the batter is even smoother. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture, mixing only until the dry ingredients disappear. Gently mix in the chunky ingredients.
4. Pour the batter into a large pan and bake for 50 minutes, rotating the pan at the half way point. The cake is ready when a thin knife inserted in the center comes out clean.