A Traditional Carrot Cake

When your Great Aunt Roma tells you to do something, you do it!

That's the lesson of last night's baking session. I had the opportunity to bake my Great Aunt Roma's famous carrot cake recipe. She used to bake this cake for weddings and still bakes it for very special family events.

Aunt Roma's vintage recipe, left small and blurry ON PURPOSE!

I didn't really remember what the cake was like when I started making it. I've only tasted it a few times over the years, so I could recall the hype surrounding the recipe, but not the cake itself.  I'll admit that I cringed when I saw ingredients liked canned crushed pineapple (gack!), flaked coconut (yuck!), and coarsely chopped nuts (ugh!) on the recipe card, but the resulting cake was oh-my-goodness-where-have-you-been-all-my-life deliciousness! The cake comes out enviably moist and riddled with chewy goodness and smelling like Christmas but way, way better.

By far, this is the best, most scrumptious, most authentic-tasting carrot cake I've ever encountered.

The glorious, miraculous carrot cake!

However, it's also the messiest, least-solid, wiliest carrot cake in the world.

The layer cake "sliced."

 

*Sigh* What a mess! Like so many things in the world, this cake's appearance belies its better qualities. The crumbly dampness that makes it so delicious was also its undoing. Great Aunt Roma's recipe calls for baking in a 9" by 13" sheet pan, but did I listen? Nooooo, I was too busy trying to make a fancy layer cake to pay attention to her instructions!

I was carried away because my Great Aunt Shirley had just given me her set of professional baking pans.

Great Aunt Shirley's coveted cake pans.

Like Great Aunt Roma, Great Aunt Shirley also baked wedding cakes back in the day. These pans originally belonged to my Great Great Grandma Higgins (Aunt Shirley's grandma!). They've been in the family for five generations now, which speaks to their sturdiness and quality. Last night, I was just dying to make a layer cake with them. And I had bought a new icing spatula, so I had to practice my frosting technique on a layer cake. And you can make a layer cake or a sheet cake with most cake mixes, so why couldn't I do the same with this recipe?

A "slice" of the cake.

That's why. Oh, the humanity!

[Update: After a night in the fridge, both the cake and the frosting have solidified and slicing is now possible! Cheers!]

Besides making an un-sliceable layer cake instead of a sheet cake, this recipe was pretty much foolproof. I won't publish the recipe here (I don't know if it's a secret or not, but I won't be the one to let Roma's cat out of the bag!), but I will give you a few hints.

The base batter is made of all the basics you'd expect, but the recipe dictates that you sift the dry ingredients together, make a well in the center, and then pour the sugar and wet ingredients on top in a certain order. Wacky, huh? I'm not sure how imperative this is, but pouring the oil directly onto the sugar gave the two time to sort of melt together before the dry stuff and eggs got in the way.

And, of course, you have to grate the carrots yourself. Pre-grated carrot slivers would be too large, which would make for rough texture in the cake. Besides, bagged grated carrots are always so dried out and rubbery--not at all what you're looking for in a dessert!

The recipe calls for flaked coconut, as well, and it was worth it to buy the more expensive coconut since it was visibly moister in the bag. The final fruity ingredient is crushed pineapple from a can, which adds even more moisture and texture. Without the fresh carrots, damp coconut, and sweet pineapple, the starting batter is thick, sticky, and almost dry--much more like banana bread than a cake.

 The mixed batter in the new cake pan.

And, I hate to admit it, but the chopped nuts (I used walnuts) were absolutely essential to the cake's texture. Normally, I'm not a fan of nuts in anything besides M&Ms and Cracker Jacks, and brownies and cakes absolutely must be nut-free. But I loved the crunchy texture and earthy saltiness they gave to this cake, the contrast that they provided against the sweet fluff of the cake body.

The cakes bake much like banana bread: they puff up very quickly, start to brown fast, turn very dark, and then take awhile to solidify in the center. In fact, I had to turn my temperature down half-way through to be sure the crust wouldn't burn while the inside solidified.

Cooling cakes.

Roma's frosting recipe called for lots of butter, a little cream cheese, a ton of powdered sugar, and a dash of vanilla. My modified recipe involved a little butter, lots of cream cheese, a ton of powdered sugar, a dash of vanilla, and a big dash of freshly squeezed lime juice (I like my cream cheese frosting to be bright and tangy, not heavy and buttery).

Brandishing the new icing spatula, ready to do cream cheese battle!

I started baking with my mother when I was very small, so I've always considered baking to be a family exercise, something to be shared and handed down. So I've very much enjoyed the opportunity to work with equipment and recipes that have been in my family for so long.

I know I'll be enjoying this carrot cake over the next week, handing a slice down to whoever is tough enough to brave its crumbly center. No matter how messy it gets, I have a feeling we'll make do.