Week Two: Heavyweight Carrot Cake

I realize I was just whining about our culture's overzealous focus on nutrition, calories and general fun-sucking from delicious food. But, I have to at least provide a warning about my second cake: it's not for the faint of heart or atrophied arm muscles. Actual nutrition facts aside (a tiny bit of extrapolation will tell you how healthy it is) this cake is downright HEAVY. Not dense, but physically heavy. 

Take a peek at a couple of the ingredients:

• 1 pound carrots, shredded
• 1 pound cream cheese, softened
• 1 1/4 pounds butter, softened
• 2 pounds powdered sugar, sifted

We're already weighing in at 5.25 pounds without even including flour or eggs. Carrying this cake in to work today on my glass cake stand (which already weighs a metric ton) was a sheer feat of endurance. I'd like to add One-Handed Cake Carrying to the Olympics or at the very least, the Highland Games. 

So prepare yourself if you intend to bake this cake or tote your grocery bags in from the car. I recommend starting with some bench press reps today. 

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Welcome to Week Two - we are officially one-fifth of the way through my challenge to bake a cake a week through the end of the year. 

To recap: 

Week 1: Coconut Cream Poke Cake

Week 2: Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting from Martha Stewart's Martha's American Food

This week, I opted to make my boss' birthday cake. I moved into this position at work a year ago and one of my first observations about my new department was that these folks love birthdays and especially, birthday cake. My meticulous predecessor kept a birthday spreadsheet with each person's primary and secondary cake and icing preference. Y'all - if your office, friend circle, or other crowd of people who love each other and love eating, doesn't do this, you're missing out. 

My second observation about this crew was that 25% of them listed carrot cake as their favorite birthday cake. That's unheard of. Carrot cake is wonderful, and my go-to Easter dessert, but no one really requests it for their birthday, right? But I forgot to mention that my predecessor also apparently makes the world's best carrot cake. Excel skills and great recipes - no pressure, right?

So let it be said that I'm in no way trying to replicate her recipe or replace her - and Kathleen, if you're reading this, I miss you and will never be able to fill your shoes - but carrot cake is Boss' favorite, and it fits the bill for my challenge. 

Carrot cake is a classic, American comfort food and I'm hoping to use this challenge to find a couple of traditional, mainstay recipes for those occasions where I feel very June Cleaver. An interesting thing about carrot cake is that recipes vary so much from the incredibly simple to over-the-top ingredients like pineapple, raisins, and crystallized ginger. However, no matter how many add-ins you use, it is always a humble, warm and comforting spice cake with creamiest icing. And there's a 90% chance there'll at least one tacky piped carrot on top; this cake is in the class 10% minority. 

Available HERE on Amazon. This is a great cookbook with un-fussy recipes of the foods we love in the US. It's sorted by geographic area, so you'll likely be really familiar with your section (hello, peach cobbler and pimento cheese) and iconic dishes (think: NY cheesecake, Philly cheese steak or New England clam chowder), but will likely be surprised by other less famous recipes. Highly recommend!  

Also, J and I have been doing an extensive study of this particular cookbook and are determined to have made every recipe in it next year. 

Part of our effort to cook through this cookbook includes the attention to writing in the book, on the recipes as we cook and eat. We've both grown tired of sacred cookbooks that are for looking, not using. We are now committed to making notes in all our cookbooks. I want mine covered in crumbs and stains (the best recipes are always on the stickiest, crunchiest pages) and have notes all over them. How else will you remember things like "not four American portions, maybe 10 European, but not US #merika" or "sauce reduces quickly" or more importantly, things like "YAAAAS. THE BEST!" or "VOID THIS RECIPE. DO NOT MAKE AGAIN." 

Please note: this challenge has NOTHING to do with cake decorating skills. #fail

Here's what I intend to write on page 66 of American Food:

• Subtle spice; maybe add more ground ginger/cinnamon/nutmeg
• Cake has great texture
• Frosting is A+++
• Make frosting ahead! But leave out well in advance to be warm/pliable 
• Don't skimp on pecan garnish

All in all, this was a pretty good cake and the crowd at work seemed pleased. I'm not certain this is the best carrot cake in the land, but I LOVE the frosting. I will refer back to this recipe to frost other cakes and since it makes almost 5 cups of frosting (thank you, 2 lbs of sugar and 1 lb of cream cheese) it will make enough for a whole pile of cupcakes.