Carrot Bread

From the Prepared Pantry

Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients

2 cups grated carrots
1.5 cups all purpose flour
.5 teaspoon salt
1.5 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3 teaspoons cinnamon

2 large eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
.5 cup vegetable oil
.5 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk

3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a medium loaf pan by greasing and dusting with flour or lining with parchment paper.

1. Grate and measure the carrots and set aside.
2. Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
3. Whip the eggs together in a medium bowl. Stir the sugar in and then add the oil, extract, and milk.
4. Make a depression in the dry ingredients and add the wet mixture along with the carrots and nuts. Mix with a spatula until combined.
5. Pour the batter into the loaf pan. Bake on the top shelf of the oven for 45 to 50 minutes or until the loaves test done when a toothpick is inserted in the middle of the loaf. Remove the loaf from the pans and cool on wire racks.

English Carrot Cake

I know what you must be thinking. English carrot cake? What on earth could be the difference between English carrot cake and American carrot cake?

Well, good thing you asked.

I enjoy following the Guardian series "How to cook the perfect..." because I think it's an excellent idea. Everyone has their version of classic recipes, but rarely are these variations compared and contrasted.

Is pasta or rice better in minestrone soup? Are tomatoes essential in it?
How about the perfect yorkshire puddings? Should they be massive pillowy things or small dainty puffs?

These variations are probably fought over in kitchens throughout the world, but the Guardian sets their writers to compare and contrast each, pulling out the best from each recipe they find, producing essentially the "best" of a particular well-known recipe.

And, for the most part, they've come up with some excellent "best of" recipes in the past (see my version of a blissfully tomato-free minestrone).

But obviously any "best of" recipe will ultimately rest with the chef making it. And here is where the carrot cake comes in.

I have had many carrot cakes in my time, most of them in the US. They can be wonderfully dense, moist things, full of carrot flavor and rich in nuts and raisins. Add some classic cream cheese frosting, and carrot cake can do wonders.

So I was eager to try the Guardian's version, particularly as, thanks to our weekly veg box, we are literally up to our ears in carrots. But as I read through the post, I became immediately suspicious. Not only was the tradition cream cheese frosting summarily rejected, but the amount of carrots in the cake seemed suspiciously low. Felicity Clark, the chef behind the recipe, seemed more concerned about the guilt factor associated with the carrot cake than making the cake...well, a cake (as she says: "Carrots aren't the only good thing in this cake – it's often laden with fruit and nuts too, in the manner of a sugar-laden granola bar hoping to pass muster as a health food").

Honey, you're making a cake. Not health food. Get over it.

She was also somehow insistent on making the cake with the bizarre "sandwich tins" so popular in the UK. Now, I have nothing against the classic Victoria sponge or any layered cake. But if you're going to layer a cake, give us enough frosting to make the layers worthwhile!! As you can see from the picture, there is little "extra" frosting to go around. And that, kids, is from doubling the original quantities posted on the website. Come on, Felicity, live a little. Even though she insisted that cream cheese frosting wasn't "dignified" enough for the cake (and too rich), her version of the frosting was just cream cheese and brown sugar. Ok, it was fine. But nothing like the glories of carrot cakes in the past. It seemed too guilty as a frosting, silently criticizing itself for being too fatty and apologizing that it was even there at all.
Look, if you're going to go with cake frosting, you're going to have to commit to it. Don't apologize.

This all seems to be a woefully long rant about the evils of the Guardian's carrot cake. Which may not seem entirely fair. The cake was perfectly edible (soaking the raisins in rum beforehand helped, a trick I used from "naughty Nigella" as Felicity puts it), yet not nearly "carrot-y" enough to satisfy my American palate. Ah well. Live and learn.

Makes: 1 cake

Ingredients

150g butter, melted, plus extra for greasing
150g soft light brown sugar
3 free-range eggs
200g self-raising wholemeal flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp grated nutmeg
Zest of 1 orange
100g sultanas or raisins, soaked in rum for at least 10 minutes
200g carrots, peeled and grated
100g pecans, toasted and roughly chopped, plus extra to decorate

For the icing:
200g full-fat cream cheese
75g light brown soft sugar
Zest of ½ lemon and a squeeze of juice

Beat that sucker.

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line the bases of 2 x 18cm sandwich tins.

Put the melted butter, sugar and eggs into a large mixing bowl and whisk well (what she actually means here is use an electric beater. Otherwise, you'll be there all day) until the ingredients are thoroughly combined and the mixture has almost doubled in volume.

Sift together the flour, bicarb, salt and spices and then fold very gently into the liquid mixture, being careful to knock as little air out as possible. Fold in the remaining ingredients and divide between the tins. Bake for about 30 minutes until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool in the tins.

Meanwhile, beat together the icing ingredients and refrigerate. When the cakes are cool enough to ice, remove from the tins, top one with half the icing, and then the other cake. Ice the top, and decorate with the remaining pecans.

Spiced Brown Sugar Carrot Bread

Well, I've finally done it. I gave in to the power of the veg box. No longer will I trawl the aisles searching desperately for fresh swede, tomatoes, or spinach. No, no. Every Tuesday, like clockwork, a very nice man deposits a very large box of farm-fresh vegetables outside my doorstep. Alongside any other little niceties I've decided to order from them that week. Which has recently included squash, bread, and even a pumpkin for Halloween. Just to make my veg box people (Abel & Cole) extra-loveable, they have a habit of including free things each week with their delivery. This week was milk. Bless them.

But with the powers of the veg box come great responsibilities. The household now has more fresh nutritious vegetables than it often knows what to do with. We have heaps of onions. Bags of potatoes. Gallons of spinach. And acres upon acres of carrots. This has produced more than a few glorious stir fries, but you can only use so many carrots in one stir fry before things start to go...a bit orange.

So what better way to use up all the bounty of the earth than to make quick breads? Carrots are particularly fabulous for this purpose, and considering that we're moving into the winter season, they are wonderfully warming. Despite the fabulous successes of previous carrot bread recipes, I went out on a lark and took the first one I could find from the Internet. I was particularly struck by the use of cardamom in the recipe. So, why not? Come on Food & Wine, show me what you got.

And, oh yes, that worked quite nicely. The crispy brown layer of sugar on the top makes this bread particularly more-ish, and the inclusion of cardamom is a nice subtle layer that doesn't override the other traditional flavors of vanilla and cinnamon. I do however highly recommend making sure you have greased your pan adequately. Despite loving attention to detail, my bread refused to unstick from its loaf tin moorings, resulting in far more crumbs and bite-size pieces than standard "slices". Ah well, still tastes great.

Makes: 1 loaf

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon crushed cardamom seeds
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cups packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Grated zest of 1/2 lemon
1 1/4 cups shredded carrots (about 7 ounces)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Coat 1 8-by-4-inch loaf pan with cooking spray or grease and lightly flour the pan.
2. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom and salt.
3. In a large bowl, beat the eggs with the light brown sugar and granulated sugar until smooth. Add the oil in a thin stream, beating at high speed until the batter has doubled in volume, about 2 minutes. Beat in the vanilla and lemon zest. Fold in the shredded carrots. Beat in the dry ingredients at low speed in 3 batches, mixing well between additions.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, filling it two-thirds full. Bake in the middle of the oven for 50 minutes to 1 hour, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Let the loaf cool in the pans for 10 minutes before turning them out onto a rack to cool completely.

MAKE AHEAD Wrap the bread tightly in plastic and store at room temperature for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 2 months.

Carrot Cake Muffins with Cream Cheese Frosting

Ok, arguably, a muffin shouldn't have frosting on it. As (again, arguably) a breakfast food, one perhaps should forgo the delicious delicious topping that everyone agrees goes naturally with carrot cake, i.e. cream cheese frosting.

I completely disagree.

I know Martha Shulman, who provided this recipe as a healthy alternative to fatty muffins in her series "Recipes for Health" in (where else?) The New York Times, is probably screaming somewhere at my abuse of her new improved healthy muffin recipe, but alas, I'm sorry Martha, this muffin needs frosting.

Of course, you are more than welcome to make the muffin as Martha suggests, frosting-less, but for those secret guilt-ridden frosting-lovers out there (which I proudly count myself among), put the frosting on in copious amounts and don't you dare feel bad about it. After all, it's a healthy muffin.
And on that note, I will say that this carrot cake recipe, muffin or otherwise, is delicious. Despite the whole wheat flour, it tastes every bit as good as a standard carrot cake recipe without the dangers of dryness or mealiness. Huzzah for carrot cake and huzzah for muffins.

Ingredients (recipe for cream cheese frosting follows)
2 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour (Martha recommends pastry flour, I used standard whole wheat flour and did just fine)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/3 cup raw brown (turbinado) sugar (or light brown sugar, which I used)
1/3 cup canola oil
1 1/3 cups buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup golden raisins tossed with 1 teaspoon unbleached all-purpose flour, or 2/3 cup chopped pecans
1 1/2 cups grated carrots

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees with the rack in the upper third of the space. Oil or butter muffin tins.

2. Sift together the whole-wheat pastry flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt.

3. In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, oil, buttermilk and vanilla. Using a whisk or a spatula, stir in the dry ingredients and mix until well combined. Do not beat; a few lumps are fine, but make sure there is no flour at the bottom of the bowl. Fold in the raisins or pecans and the carrots.

4. Spoon into muffin cups, filling them to just below the top (about 4/5 full). Place in the oven, and bake 25 minutes until lightly browned and well risen. Cover copiously with cream cheese frosting (recipe follows).

Yield: Twelve muffins, depending on the size of the muffin tins.

Cream Cheese Frosting (come on, you know you want to)
(from the Joy of Cooking)

Ingredients
8 oz. cold cream cheese
5 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar (icing sugar)
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Method
Beat in a medium bowl at low speed the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until just blended.
Add the sugar 1/3 at a time, and beat just until smooth and the desired consistency. Stir in ground cinnamon.
If the frosting is too stiff, beat for a few seconds longer but be careful not to overbeat.