Carrot cake
Carrot cake is a sweet spice cake with grated carrot mixed into the batter. The carrot softens in the cooking process, and the cake usually has a soft, dense texture. The carrots themselves enhance the flavour, texture and appearance of the cake.
Baking and contents
Deceptively named, carrot cake more closely resembles a quick bread in construction (all the wet ingredients, such as the eggs and sugar, are mixed together, all the dry ingredients are mixed together, and the wet is then added to the dry) and final consistency (which is usually denser than a traditional cake and has a coarser crumb).
Many carrot cake recipes include optional ingredients, such as nuts, raisins, pineapple, or coconut.[1]
Serving
Carrot cake may be eaten plain, but it is commonly either glazed or topped with white icing or cream cheese icing and walnuts, often chopped. Often they're decorated with frosting made to look like carrots. They are popular in loaf, sheet cake and cupcake form, and (in the United Kingdom as well as the United States) can be found pre-packaged at grocery stores, and fresh at bakeries.
History
Carrots have been used in sweet cakes since the medieval period, during which time sweeteners were scarce and expensive, while carrots, which contain more sugar than any other vegetable besides the sugar beet, were much easier to come by and were used to make sweet desserts.[2] The popularity of carrot cake was likely revived in Britain because of rationing during the Second World War.[3]
Carrot cakes first became commonly available in restaurants and cafeterias in the United States in the early 1960s. It was at first a novelty item, but people liked them so much that carrot cake became standard dessert fare.[citation needed] In 2005, the American-based Food Network listed carrot cake, with its cream-cheese icing, as number five of the top five fad foods of the 1970s.
References
- I'm Just Here for More Food: Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking by Alton Brown ISBN 1-58479-341-4
- Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson ISBN 0-19-211579-0
See also
- Chai tow kway, a fried "carrot cake" found in Southeast Asia, which is considered a delicacy. The name "cake" is actually a misnomer.