Ang Sarap (A Tagalog word for "It's Delicious")

Carrot Cake

Last weekend I decided to make a carrot cake and it was more than 10 years since I made one so I don’t know my ingredients but thanks to the internet I can easily search for the ingredients I needed. I checked some posts that came in the first page of Google search but was not convinced as some look so sweet and others look to dry, I just took note of the amount of flour, carrots and amount of wet ingredients on those posts and that will serve as the base of my recipe. Initially I was a afraid of making my own recipe as baking is not like cooking where you can adjust as you cook, once it’s in the oven then that’s it but for the love of food I told myself I have to do it. So after two hours and some adjustments with the time needed for it to cook I had made the best carrot cake I ever tried, its moist inside, with crisp sides and crust, not too sweet combined with a great nutty and fruity taste. It was so good the cake did not last 24 hours and it’s just three of us in the household.

Now before we go with the ingredients lets learn about this cakes history. Carrots since the medieval period have been used in sweet cakes as an alternative to sweeteners which was scarce and expensive during that time. Though it was used in some pastries before it was in Gothenburg, Sweden where the real first carrot cake was created, the cake that closely resembles the modern version. It was then popularized in Britain due to the food rationing in World War II. Then in the 1960′s it became commercially available in the United States, it easily became a favourite. It became really popular, in fact it was also one of the top 5 fad food during the 1970′s.

Ingredients (Carrot Cake)

3 cups carrots, grated
1 cup walnuts, chopped
1 cup raisins
2 cups flour
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups butter, melted
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon

Ingredients (Cream Cheese Icing)

1/4 cup butter, melted
1 packet cream cheese, softened
confectioners’ sugar
lemon zest

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Grease a 9 inch diameter cake pan.
3. In a bowl mix together eggs, butter, brown sugar and vanilla.
4. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
5. Mix together dry and wet mixture then once it has an even consistency add carrots, walnuts and raisins.
6. Pour into the baking pan then bake for 1 hr. and 15 minutes or when the middle part is already cooked and do that by checking with a toothpick during the first hour to make sure that the cakes centre is dry as that what I found out that the middle part tend to be wet.
7. Once cooked let it cool before applying your icing.
8. To make the icing just mix all of the Cream Cheese Icing ingredients except for the lemon zest in a bowl and using a hand mixer beat until mixture is smooth. Use the amount of sugar you want, I use less so that I have a contrasting sweet taste of the carrot cake and saltiness of the cream cheese.
9. Once mixed, place on top of carrot cake and drizzle some lemon zest.

Daughter cannot wait for her slice