carrot cake

Recipe

1. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon in a bowl.

2. In a different bowl, mix eggs, butter, sugar, molasses.

3. Mix dry bowl into wet bowl.

4. Fold in carrots, ginger, pecans.

5. Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes. Rotate. Bake 20 minutes.

6. Cool cake. Serve with ricotta frosting.

Ingredients

• 1 cup flour

• 1/2 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 1 & 1/2 tsp cinnamon

• 1 cup melted butter

• 2 eggs

• scant cup sugar

• 1 tbsp molasses

• 2 cups shredded carrots

• 3 tbsp shredded ginger

• 1 cup broken pecans

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Can I add fruit to carrot cake?

Of course you can add fruit to your carrot cake. Canned crushed pineapple (drained) is a classic addition. Halved or quartered dark morello cherries, like the kinds used in black forest cakes, are also great.

Dried fruits like cranberries and raisins can be great in carrot cake too. If you have time, soak the dried fruits in whiskey, brandy, or simple syrup overnight for an especially moist finished cake.

This is a very easy and accommodating carrot cake, you can add about a cup any of these drained fruits to the recipe without having to adjust the other aspects of the recipe.

How to prepare ginger.

America’s Test Kitchen recommended peeling ginger with a spoon. I have tried it, it’s much more unpleasant than eating a little ginger skin.

If you choose fresh organic ginger the skin is generally pretty smooth and indiscernible in this cake. For this recipe, just grate the ginger with the same side of the box grater you use to grate the carrots. The big strips of ginger bring a citrusy brightness to the cake without being overpoweringly spicy. If you don’t like the bigger pieces, you can also grate the ginger with a microplane, just throw out any big chunks of skin that don’t grate nicely.

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