Annika's Baking Nook
By Annika Venegas
Carrot Cake
Although carrot cake may be known as a fall dessert, I think we can agree that it is a dessert that can be enjoyed during all seasons. The blend of all the spices combined with the moist texture is what makes this dessert an all year favorite.
In this issue, I will be making my favorite cake, carrot cake. The recipe is from “Sally’s Baking Addiction,” a blog I have used a couple of times for recipes. I have made this cake two times beforehand and it has been a big hit both times. I was excited to taste the sweet and savory flavors of this cake once again!
Like most baked goods, this recipe took a long time to make. It took me about 3 and a half hours including an hour long break in between. Luckily, this cake does not ask you to do anything complicated or difficult, which makes it a simple and straightforward recipe. The most time consuming part was grating the carrots, however, that itself did not take much time at all.
I would recommend creating 50-75% of what the recipe lists for the frosting. The first time I made this cake, I made it exactly how it was listed, and I was left with a lot of extra frosting I did not use. In addition, I believe the cake itself is sweet enough, so decreasing the amount of sugar in the frosting would be a good idea. After all, it is nice to be able to taste the savory flavors of the spices and not just the overly sweet frosting.
The taste of this cake was magnificent. I believe the reason carrot cake is popular is because of its sugary features, not because it has carrot in it! I am never able to taste the carrot in the cake and actually forget that it is part of the cake! The spices are a nice blend and go very well with the cream cheese frosting! My favorite part was adding pecans in the batter and on top of the cake itself. It added a nice crunchiness that I very much enjoyed.
As always, if you try this recipe out, don’t forget to email me @venegasa@student.epcusd401.org and let me know if you liked the recipe!
The start of the process!
I began stirring the dry ingredients and wet ingredients together, one of the final steps of the recipe. Make sure to mix the ingredients enough so there are no lumps! Finally, add the grated carrots and pecans.
The batter in the cake pans before I put them in the oven!
I used two cake pans which gave this cake 2 layers. I would recommend using some sort of protection, like PAM cooking spray, so that the cake does not stick to the pan after it is done baking. I put some butter on the pan before baking and it somehow still stuck; however, it was easy to take the batter off the pan.
The final product of the cake!
I initially wanted to draw a carrot with frosting on the cake but I did not have the food coloring for it, so I decided to use blue and create a heart!
The cake was delicious!