ISO: ISO the perfect carrot cake recipe

In Search Of:
My Favorite from Julia's in Seattle

When living in Seattle I ran across this recipe from the newspaper featuring the fabulous Julia's in Wallingford. This recipe is amazing and gets better a day after! I cannot think of Julia's without thinking of carrot cake!

Carrot Walnut Cake
Julia’s (Seattle, WA)

For a 2 Layer Cake:
2-1/2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
11 oz. canola oil
3-1/2 cups bread flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
24 oz. canned crushed pineapple (drained)
23 oz. fresh cooked diced carrots
4 oz. coconut
5 oz. chopped walnuts

Filling & Frosting:
6 oz. unsalted butter
1-1/2 pounds cream cheese, softened.
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
½ teaspoon lemon juice

1. Mix sugar, eggs and oil in a bowl.
2. Stir together flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon and add to mixture.
3. Mix in pineapple, carrots, coconut and walnuts.
4. Grease and lightly flour two 9-inch round baking pans. Pour in the batter and bake 35-45 minutes in a preheated 350* oven until cake pulls form sides of pan.

1. Beat butter lightly to soften. Add cream cheese and mix well until smooth. Add sugar and lemon juice mixing lightly.
2. Fill the cake layers with the frosting, coating sides and top. Decorate with walnuts or piped frosting from a pastry bag. Keep refrigerated.

 
A word of caution regarding my experience with the SP carrot cake . . .

Let me start by saying that this is ONLY MY experience . . .

I have been making the SP carrot cake for many years and I love it without a doubt, even though preparing the cooked carrots is a little more work (though in a pinch I use canned carrot puree - HORRORS!!)

BUT, I have/had been making the SP recipe as regular or mini-cupcakes, rather than as a 3 layer cake, as cupcakes are far easier to transport to the office on the bus than a layer cake!

Last January I tried it as a layer cake for the first time . . . with less than spectacular results. It may have been me, it may have been the oven (though the oven had been on all day and we noticed no other problems) . . . I found that the recipe took FAR longer to bake to doneness, and that it "domed" excessively in the middle.

As this was a cake that I wanted to frost, it took probably about 2X the frosting I anticipated and was unappealing to me, personally (though my friends tried their best to convince me otherwise that everyone would love all the frosting), because I am not a frosting fan . . . inches of frosting to fill in the gaps was gross!!

I am NOT saying it wasn't something "wrong" that I did . . . needless to say (in MY defense), it was the third cake I had baked and frosted that day, in between the other appetizers we were also making!!

Just a warning . . . I think you said you have a couple of months to "test" your preferred recipe. Good for you. This one is worth testing . . . it's GREAT . . . especially for cupcakes.

I think for this year's upcoming X/Mas (post XMAS) party, I am going to suggest that we stick to our T&T recipes!!

 
magnolia, I had a similar experience....

but each time I made it, the edges of my layers would be nice and high, but the centers would be caved in.
It did take much longer to bake than the recipe indicated, as well.
I do like the taste, so might try it as cupcakes.
When I want a layer cake, I use either a pineapple coconut carrot cake recipe, or a pumpkin carrot cake recipe I printed from the old "Gail's".

 
I adapted the SP for a wedding....

...ended up making 5 half-sheets, but was extrememly careful about the increased rising agent based on Rose Beranbaum's lecture. The cakes work out thick, beautiful and perfectly flat, but I also used damp cake wraps around the pans.

A few other changes: Used Beranbaum's candied fresh pineapple and steamed organic carrots before pureeing them. Iced with her white chocolate cream cheese icing.

 
Joe, Check the Carrot Cake by John Baricelli on the Martha Stewart Website. It looked amazing. ....

There is also a video you can watch.

Gay

 
Haven't read the above, but after making dozens and dozens of them...

I would vote for the Carrot Cake recipe in the new Gourmet Cookbook as the best one I've ever had. And you have to use the oil to get the carrot cake right, after all, as Alton said, it IS a carrot muffin disguised as a cake.

 
Thanks for the heads-ups, ladies. I hadn't thought of cupcakes >>

If all else fails they would work for this party. After serving embarrassingly tasteless carrots on Christmas (Costco) I'm sold on organic ones.

 
I thought Alton was just looking for an excuse >>

to eat cake for breakfast. Thanks, Richard, I'll check this one out too.

 
I did find one carrot cake in my files that is made with butter REC: Mrs Fields Carrot Cake..

It's baked in 9-inch pans too! Have not tried it though.

Mrs. Fields Carrot Cake

Recipe By :Debbie Fields
Serving Size : 18

2 1/2 cups All-purpose flour
1 tablespoon Baking soda
1/4 teaspoon Salt
2 teaspoons Cinnamon
1 cup Packed Light brown sugar
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup Butter -- softened
3 Large Eggs
2 teaspoons Pure vanilla extract
3 cups Grated carrots
1/2 cup Crushed pineapple -- drained
1 cup raisins -- (6-oz.)
1 cup chopped walnuts -- (4-oz.)
ICING:
16 ounces Cream cheese -- softened
1/2 cup butter -- softened
1 tablespoon Fresh lemon juice -- (about 1 large lemon)
2 teaspoons Pure vanilla extract
3 cups Confectioners' sugar

Preheat oven to 350-degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans.
In a large bowl stir together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and sugars. Add butter, one egg and vanilla; blend with electric mixer on low speed. Increase speed to medium and beat for 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl. And remaining eggs, one at a time, beating 30 seconds after each addition. Add carrots, pineapple, raisins and walnuts. Blend on low until thoroughly combined. Pour batter into prepared pans and smooth the surface with a rubber spatula. Bake in center of oven for 60-70 (check after 30) minutes. Toothpick inserted into center should come out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Then invert cakes on rack and cool to room temperature.

PREPARE ICING: In a medium bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat cream cheese and butter until smooth add lemon juice and vanilla; beat until combined. Add sugar gradually, mixing on low until smooth.

ICE THE CARROT CAKE: Place one layer on a cake platter, and with a metal spatula spread icing over the top to form a thin filling. Place second layer over the first, rounded side up. Coat the top and sides of the cake evenly with remaining icing. Refrigerate 1 hour to set icing.

 
Hi Joe - I've had similar experiences with carrots, and now only buy

organic. There is definitely a taste difference between the two.

I've been hooked on a carrot soup, and made it 4 times - once with some "Rainbow" organic carrots (orange, yellow and red), another time with organic baby carrots, then with traditionally farmed baby and regular carrots.

The flavor was infinitely better with the organic than the traditionally farmed ones.

 
Agreed. Lisa. I used to poo-pooh the "organic" label, >>

before the current legal definitions anything "grown" was technically organic, but now "Certified Organic" really means something, and I can taste the difference. I recently started a vegetable garden plot in a local Long Beach Organic Community Garden. I'm having fun but BOY do I miss my Osmocote time-release 15-15-15 fertilizer. I always kept a compost bin and all but used the commercial fertilizers as a back-up. So far my organic salads have been tiny and stunted, but delicious. In time, all the wood chips I dug into the soil will eventually decompose to give me real crops. I hope! I've planted carrots but I'll be lucky to get enough twisted roots (the garden is on the site of an old red-line throughway; very compacted soil full of gravel.) to flavor a pot of stock!

 
I've only made the SP recipe as a layer cake ...

and I agree that it 'sometimes' domes or falls in the middle (which I solve by turning over to frost. Also, It does take at least 1.5 times the frosting it calls for. That being said - it is still one of the most requested of my cake recipes.

But I'm so glad you mentioned making them as cupcakes - terrific.

Deb in MI

 
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