Thursday, June 11, 2009

Carrot Cake

I baked this carrot cake for Swara's 6th month B'day. I bought this book called "The Cook's Encyclopedia of BAKING" by Carole Clements few years back. Unfortunately, never got a chance to try out any recipes from this book. All the cakes I had baked so far used butter. So I was looking for a recipe that uses oil instead of butter . The carrot cake recipe in this book seemed to be perfect bcoz firstly I had never baked a carrot cake at home and secondly it used oil instead of butter. This is probably the best carrot cake we have ever tasted. It was very moist and delicious. I stored it in the refrigerator and warmed it up for 15 sec in the microwave before serving. I strongly recommend trying this recipe. You will love it.



Ingredients -
1 pound carrots, peeled
11/2 cups flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsps ground cinnamon
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
11/4 cups oil
1 cup walnuts, finely chopped
1/2 cup raisins

Procedure -
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line the baking pan with wax paper and grease it with some butter/ oil. You can also just grease the baking pan and dust with some flour.
2. Grate the carrots and set aside.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon into a bowl. Set aside.
4. With an electric mixer, beat the eggs until blended. Add the vanilla, sugar and oil, beat to incorporate. Add the dry ingredients, in 3 batches, folding in well after each addition.
5. Add the carrots, walnuts and raisins and fold in throughly.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until the cake springs back when touched lightly, 40- 45 mins. Let stand 10 mins, then unmold and transfer to a rack.
7. Decorate the cake as you please.