Carrot Cake

Popular dishes seem to come in waves. One person will blog about a dish and next thing you know you're seeing the same dish on several blogs. This is essentially how I came to make carrot cake.

First I saw a recipe on Jaime at Good Eats 'n Sweet Treats's post, then I saw Emiline's recipe, more recently I saw Amber's post and just the other day, I was looking through my new Dorie Greenspan book and saw her recipe for "Bill's Big Carrot Cake", which Brilynn made a couple of months ago.

So many options! I ended up going with Emiline's recipe. Jaime, yours was very tempting, but I was having trouble finding the proper coconut flakes.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground clove
1/4 cup (1/2 a stick) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup canola oil
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
3 cups grated carrot (peeled)
1 cup finely chopped pineapple
3/4 cup finely chopped pecans, toasted (I excluded this, I generally don't put nuts in my baked goods)

Frosting:
12 ounces (1&1/2 packages) cream cheese, softened
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3 cups confectioners' sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 3 (8-inch) cake pans, using your preferred method.

In a medium sized mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and clove. In a large mixing bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat together butter, oil, brown sugar, and granulated sugar, until creamy, about 1-2 minutes. Beat in vanilla, and one egg at a time, until well combined. Reduce mixer speed to low, and beat in flour mixture, alternating with the milk, until combined, about 1-2 minutes (always remember to scrape down the sides of your bowl). Stir in carrot, pineapple, and pecans, using a rubber spatula, until well combined. I also added raisins (about 3/4 cup)



Scrape batter evenly into prepared cake pans. Bake at 350 degrees F, for 30-35 minutes, or until golden brown, and cake springs back when pressed gently, in the center. Cool pans on a wire rack, for 10 minutes. Run a knife around outer edges, and invert cakes onto waxed/parchment paper, to cool completely.

Unfortunately, my raisins stuck to the pans and for one of the three cakes and created problems:



But after icing the cake, you couldn't tell.

To make the frosting, beat together cream cheese, and butter, in a large mixing bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, until creamy, about 1-2 minutes. Beat in vanilla, and sift in confectioners' sugar, gradually, until frosting is smooth and creamy, about 2-3 minutes (remember to scrape down the sides of your bowl).

Frost as desired.



Clearly, my cake decoration skills are non-existent. I also didn't do a great job of judging the amount of frosting I had. I was worried that I wouldn't have enough frosting left over at the end, so I was very conservative when frosting each layer. In the end, I shouldn't have been because there was a lot of frosting on the outside and not much between the layers.





Yield: 12 servings

I intended to participate in Sunita's Think Spice...Think Star Anise event. But, alas, I couldn't get my stuff together in time for that. But, I am very happy to submit this post to this months event Think Spice...Think Cloves.



Verdict: The cake was moist and very good. The cloves, along with the cinnamon, filled my apartment with a great scent and added a nice depth the the flavour of the cake. Next time, I'll probably cut down on the amount of icing I use. That, or find an icing that doesn't use cream cheese. But, even with too much icing, it was very good. One problem...who wants to do the dishes? One...two...three...Not it!



********************************************************************

I have some questions for you guys.

I want to purchase a good knife. If you have the time can you answer the following questions:

1. What knife do you use most often?
2. I'm thinking about getting a chef's knife. How long of a blade should it have?
3. What's the difference between a chef's knife and and a Santuko?
4. I was looking at the Wusthof, Henkel and Mac knives. Do you use any of these ones? Or, do you recommend one of these brands or a completely different brand of knife?
5. Is there anything else I should consider?

*******************************************************************

Lastly, I wanted to remind you that the Tried, Tested and True deadline is the end of the day Monday.