Desert or Dessert

Chef John from food wishes asked a few days ago for some readers to test a cake for him.
Since I have never made a carrot cake and come to think of it can’t remember ever eating one I did a little research on how carrot cake became so popular and where it originated.
On this site I found lots of information and I was surprised to find out that carrots have been used in sweets since the middle ages when sweeteners where hard to come by and very expensive. In Europe a dish called carrot pudding was quite popular during that time.
In England it was revived when rationing during WW2 forced the home cook to think outside the box. Carrots where chosen because they contain (other than the sugar beet) more sugar than other vegetable and where easier to come by.
In the early 60’s it made it’s entrance into the US. First as a novelty and later as a regular visitor not just at church potlucks.
Having found out more about this cake I jumped into the kitchen and got to work
Recipe


The recipe asked for Walnuts and Pecans. I only had a bag of mixed nuts (mainly walnuts, a few hazelnuts and almonds) in the house and that is what I used and I bake with spelt flour.
This is a cake that comes together very quickly and the only step that takes a moment is grating the carrots.

                              The cake was done at 35 minutes baking time

Verdict:

Out of 10 it got a 7.2 in our family.
My son gave it a 10, my husband a 7 and I gave it a 5 which is great because I don’t care for American style cakes with frosting.
It’s the frosting usually that gets me running (to sweet). This frosting was sweet but it was also good. I ate a very small piece just to try.
The cake went with my husband to feed some soldiers. They enjoyed it and not one piece came back.
Overall I am glad I tried it. It was very moist due to the pineapple (I think). It had just the right amount of nuts in it. The carrots gave it a beautiful color and the frosting was smooth and did not dry out.
Now to Chef John’s claim of this being the best carrot cake in the world I will have to take his word for it because this is the first I ever made or tried.
How about you give it a try and let us know what you thought of it! Is it the best in the world?

PS: Oops, just realized that there should have been some baking soda in this cake. I missed it and it was not in my cake. Not sure if that would have made any difference since my cake did get plenty of rise, was moist and light. Not sure what it’s purpose was in here.