I love baking

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Carrot Cake

I made neither a carrot cake nor a coconut cake for Easter dessert. My daughter declared that she hates carrot cake AND coconut cake, and my husband – who had requested those specific cakes in the first place – revealed that his suggestions hadn’t been serious, since no one likes carrot or coconut cake except him.

Instead, I made a strawberry cake.

Slightly wonky but you can’t *really* tell it was a diaster.

It was an utter failure. I severely underbaked the cake layers, so that there was a circle of nearly raw cake in the center of each. Fortunately, I’d made six cupcakes with the extra batter, so I removed the raw cake using a glass, and filled the cavity in the bottom cake with an upside-down cupcake. Then I filled the hole in the top layer with extra frosting. No one seemed to notice and the cake was quite delicious: light and fluffy and strawberry-y.

Hot tip: Macerated strawberries can hide a multitude of sins.

I did not take photos of how raw the layers were, or of the cupcake plug; I was trying to hurry to “fix” things before my husband noticed. He tends to execute things perfectly the first time, so he never needs to come up with creative fixes, and my fear was that he would say my cupcake repair job wouldn’t work, or that he would recommend I throw the whole thing out, and I wanted to try my solution without any anti-problem-solving vibes.

While we ate the strawberry cake, I noted that it was a second choice after carrot cake, which was when I discovered that both of my parents LOVE carrot cake. Okay then.

So I made a carrot cake for their birthdays. Their birthdays are a day apart, and we took them the cake on the day in between so we could give them presents and celebrate with them.

In advance of the baking, I did a LOT of research on carrot cakes. I read a TON of carrot cake recipes. My husband and parents both felt strongly that a carrot cake should have raisins and nuts; my parents were not a huge fan of the idea of pineapple; my dad was the sole “meh” on including coconut in the carrot cake while my mom and husband were solidly “pro coconut,” except in the frosting.

Might as well throw some bananas and tomatoes in there too, is how I feel about carrot cake.

It was surprisingly difficult to find a recipe that included all the things they wanted while excluding all the things they didn’t. I ended up mashing several recipes together to make a carrot cake. Cake hubris at its finest, no? Yet somehow, against all odds, the cake turned out perfectly. My husband liked it so much, he requested that I write down the recipe I used so I can make it again. The recipe is at the bottom of this post.

If you are a person who dislikes recipe blogs because they blather about not-the-recipe for several paragraphs before posting the recipe, and prefer pithy gets-to-the-point recipe posts, well, we’re already 400+ words in at this point and perhaps you’ve already realized you’re reading the wrong blog.

(Possibly you come here because you enjoy or are at least tolerant of my tendency to blather. And blather I shall.)

Cake Expectations

Cake, it seems, has become one of my love languages. Anyone who has read this blog in the past dozen years is well aware of my annual angst over baking a birthday cake for my child. In addition to baking for her, I have now had several opportunities to make cakes for my husband and parents as well.

The thing is, I’m not very good at it. Just reread the bit above about the raw cake centers for a glaring yet all-too-typical example of how not very good at it I am. Something always goes wrong.

  • There was the year I ran out of baking powder and had to switch recipes midstream, at which point I realized I didn’t have the right flour, and once I’d used math to sort that, I ended up needing extra batter and had to make a third batch.
  • This year, in addition to the raw cake layers from Easter, I also managed to somehow split the cream cheese frosting for the carrot cake, which required some tinkering to fix.

I think, over the years, I’ve mellowed a bit. I have more than a decade of cake-baking experience under my belt, and that makes me more confident that I can handle issues should they arise. (Over-confident, some might say.) Of course, I can simply start over if I need to.

But even with the mellowness of age and experience, there is usually that moment when something goes wrong, and I’m trying to come up with a solution, and I’m conscious of the time ticking down to the point at which I will require a complete and edible cake to serve to guests, and the kitchen is over-hot and I still have to shower or dry my hair or get dressed or finish wrapping gifts. THIS is the point when I begin to panic, erasing any and all confidence I began with.

Because I am aware that I’m not very good at baking, I tend to angst about the cake baking quite a bit in advance. I scour recipes. I ask probing, clarifying questions. I research and buy additional tools (in past years, I’ve added a cake leveler and a cake turntable to my collection for this reason).  Over the years, many people have offered up gentle and reasonable suggestions, like… Maybe just BUY A CAKE. That would lift all the stress and anxiety off of my shoulders. It would absolve me of any guilt should the cake not taste utterly delicious. It would free up my time to be more present with my family (and less fretful) or to do any number of things I eschew when I’m in a baking frenzy (showering, exercising, eating meals). And yet I stubbornly persist in making (subpar) cakes.

What kind of cake related character flaw IS this? Some sort of narcissism? Martyr complex?

In my head, it is love. I love these people so much, I want to mark their birthdays in a special way. I love them so much, I want to give them the exact cake they want – no generic yellow cake from a box, no over-sweet chemical-flavored frosting from the grocery store, no overpriced but not-quite-right cake from a bakery.

(I promise you, this is not some belief that MY cakes are better than perfectly serviceable store-bought cakes. For many years, my husband’s birthday request was for a Dairy Queen ice cream cake, and if that’s what he wanted, that’s what he got. My mother-in-law LOVES the frosting a local bakery uses for their cakes, even though I find it tasteless and greasy, so we have gotten her cakes from that bakery for her birthday. If you have a specific treat in mind, you should have it, especially on your birthday!)

It also feels meaningful, to me, to spend several hours thinking about a loved one while I’m baking their Ideal Cake. It’s a personal way to honor them, to think about all the birthdays we’ve been lucky enough to celebrate together, to cherish their presence in my life. This sounds really goopy and kind of stupid, but these are the thoughts that go through my mind while I plan the cake and make my grocery list and do the shopping and measure out the ingredients. I hum and smile to myself.

When they cut into the cake, put that first bite into their mouth, I can finally relax. I have done all I can.

I know – I know – it is Just A Cake, one cake, one moment in a whole long lifetime of moments big and small.

I also know this: The last bit of frosting will melt onto a tongue, the dishes will be rinsed and tucked into the dishwasher, the final crumbs will be swept into the sink and the gift wrap will lie crumpled in the trash. The celebration and the cake will soon join the blur of day-to-day. But I have tried, in my small, ordinary, imperfect way, to make my loved one’s wishes come true, to make them feel seen, and cared for, and understood. Maybe that’s too much to expect from a cake, but it’s why I keep baking.

Carrot Cake

Note on the recipe: This is a mashup of three recipes: “Bill’s big carrot cake” from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking cookbook;  “Mother Thomas’s carrot cake” from Jelly Jules; and Sam’s “Best carrot cake recipe” from SugarSpunRun. The resulting cake is what my mother calls “dense and heavy,” which is exactly what she wanted from a carrot cake. The frosting started out as a pretty standard cream cheese frosting recipe, but I ended up adding a little of this and that to get it to work the way I wanted to.

Note on the serving size: This carrot cake recipe produced enough batter to fill two-and-a-half 6-inch cake pans with enough leftover for six standard cupcakes. The frosting recipe produced enough frosting to cover a mid-size sedan.

Cake Ingredients:

Dry
2 ½ cups (315 g) all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 ½ tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp salt

Filling
3 cups (340 g) grated peeled carrots see Note 1
1 cup (125 g) coarsely chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)
1 cup shredded coconut (optional)
½ cup golden raisins (optional)

Wet
1 cup (200 g) white sugar
1 cup (200 g) brown sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature see Note 2
1 cup canola or vegetable oil
½ cup buttermilk see Note 3

Frosting Ingredients:

4 oz unsalted butter, at room temperature
12 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
¼ tsp salt
¼ cup sour cream, at room temperature
4 cups (500 g) powdered sugar

Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 325 F/163 C. (see Note 4)
  2. Line your baking pans (see Note 5) with parchment paper.
  3. In a medium bowl, whisk the dry ingredients (2 ½ cups/315 g all-purpose flour, 1 ½ tsp baking powder, 1 ½ tsp baking soda, 2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp ground nutmeg, 1 tsp salt) together.
  4. In a medium bowl, mix the filling ingredients (3 cups/340 g grated peeled carrots, 1 cup/125 g coarsely chopped pecans/walnuts, 1 cup shredded coconut, ½ cup golden raisins) together.
  5. In a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the sugars (1 cup/200 g white sugar, 1 cup/200 g brown sugar) and the oil (1 cup canola or vegetable oil) on medium speed until well-mixed.
  6. With the mixer still running, add the eggs, one at a time, until incorporated.
  7. Scrape down the sides of the mixer, then add the buttermilk and mix until incorporated.
  8. After scraping down the sides of the mixer again, add the dry ingredients to the mixer. On low speed, mix until a few streaks of flour remain.
  9. Using a spatula, gently fold in the filling ingredients.
  10. Divide the batter among the baking pans and bake them for 30-50 minutes, rotating them at the halfway point. (see Note 6) Check for doneness by inserting a toothpick in the center of each cake; the toothpick should come out clean or with a few crumbs.
  11. Allow the cakes to cool for five minutes in their pans, then, using a knife to release the edges of the cake from the pans, remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.
  12. While the cakes are cooling, combine the cream cheese and butter in your mixer on medium speed until smooth.
  13. With the mixer running, add the salt and sour cream and mix until incorporated.
  14. Scrape down the bowl of the mixer, then add powdered sugar, one cup at a time, and mix until smooth.
  15. Wait until your cake is completely cool before frosting.
  16. Store frosted cake in the fridge for 3ish days, or wrap tightly in plastic wrap to freeze.

Notes:

  1. I grated my own carrots because I’d read that using pre-grated carrots didn’t add enough moisture to the cake. But I haven’t tried pre-shredded carrots my self, so maybe they are a fine and useful shortcut.
  2. I often forget to remove the eggs from the fridge early enough to bring them to room temperature, so I have found that submerging them in a small bowl of warm water does the trick in about 5-10 minutes.
  3. I did not have buttermilk on hand, so I added ½ tablespoon of white vinegar to a measuring cup, then filled it up to the ½-cup mark with whole milk, and let the mixture sit for about 5ish minutes.
  4. Depending on the size of your cake pans, you may want to set a cookie sheet on the oven rack while you pre-heat the oven. When you are ready to bake your cake, set the filled cake pans on the hot cookie sheet. This enables easier rotating.
  5. My inspiration recipes called for a variety of pans (8-inch round cake pans, a 10-x15-inch rectangular cake pan, or 9-inch round cake pans). I used 6-inch round cake pans, but then I was able to make another 6-inch round that wasn’t quite as tall plus 6 cupcakes with the remaining batter.
  6. The baking time will vary based on your oven’s temperament, the size of your baking pans, and on other mysterious factors I cannot identify. For my 6-inch baking pans, I started with about 15 minutes, rotated the pans, then baked them for an additional ten minutes before testing the centers with a toothpick. Then I rotated them again and continued to bake them, checking them at 5-minute intervals (and rotating them each time) until they were done. For my cupcakes, the initial bake was 10 minutes, then I checked them at 5-minute intervals after rotating them until they were done.
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Five for Friday

Perhaps you are wondering, what the hell am I doing?! Well, apparently I am participating in NaBloPoMo, although not here; I’m writing a post every day in November over on my book blog. And apparently I am also still posting in this space too (though not every day!), because I am… on the other extreme of the posting pendulum?? out of my gourd??? an asshole???? I don’t know. I don’t expect you to read any of it and I’m sorry. I have a problem.  

A warning. I made these amazing and delicious sugar-free, gluten-free – and yet legit delicious! I swear! although Carla and my husband disagree! – brownies again for Halloween. When I made them the first time, I bought a package of super expensive Medjool dates at my grocery store (the sweetness of the brownies comes from dates, spoiler alert) (I don’t even LIKE dates, but these brownies are good) and my only complaint about the brownies was that it is a pain in the rear to pit all the dates. But! THIS TIME I spotted a bag of Dole pitted dates that was, like, HALF the price of the fancy dates, so I bought that to save both money and time, am a genius. To make the brownies, you pulse chocolate and baking soda in a food processor, add dates, then add eggs and vanilla and pour everything into a pan and bake. Easy peasy, delicious. Halfway through making the brownies, my food processor started smoking and kind of stopped working. This is called foreshadowing. I have clearly not watched enough horror movies, so I just thought it was my food processor’s time. I’ve had that thing since 2008, and it’s lived a long and productive life. Time for a new one. I scraped the date mixture into my blender, which had no trouble turning everything into a nice uniform-but-very-sticky goo, poured the batter into the pan, and baked. The brownies were delicious and soft and I frosted them by pouring some chocolate chips on top while they were still warm, and then spreading the melty chips all over the top. My husband gamely agreed to try one, and bit into it… and right into a DATE PIT. So. This very elaborate and somewhat boring story is in service of warning you to still inspect all of the dates, even if they are supposedly PITTED. I suppose this is the baking equivalent of “never trust a blinker.” Never trust a pitted fruit claim, folks, you heard it here first.

My orchid is reblooming! I got this orchid as a gift way back in 2017. It has rebloomed a few times since then but for the first time in my memory, it has THREE blooms instead of one. I think it’s very happy in its new spot on my mantel. 

My kid attended her first b’nai mitzvah of the season last week. When I first posted that she has six to attend this year, a couple of people had questions. Suz wanted to know, “Does that mean six different dresses and six different gifts?” and Eli wondered, “I want to know what one wears to a b’nai Mitzvah! And what kind of gifts is one supposed to give?” Well, first of all, I am a Mean Mom and I only allowed Carla to get two dresses. (And please understand that “only” is in giant scare quotes because that is PLENTY OF DRESSES, she is very spoiled.) (And also, it’s really FOUR dresses, because I bought her two appropriate-for-synagogue dresses as well, that she can wear to the ceremonies.) What girls wear to the party portion of b’nai mitzvah in our area are short fancy dresses and sneakers. Yes. Together. It is my understanding that the dresses are of the same style as those girls are wearing to homecoming. They are very short, sometimes very form fitting. They do not, in my opinion, seem at all appropriate for a middle schooler. And yet they are The Trend. All of us seventh grade moms have been fretting together about the dresses and how uncomfortable they make us, and reassuring ourselves and one another that it’s The Trend and it’s Just A Dress etc. Much as moms have done for time immemorial, I’m sure. For gifts, we are doing cold, hard cash. It is apparently standard to give money in multiples of 18, which is a significant number in some Jewish traditions. 

I made aloo gobi last week, and it was delicious. (It was not, my husband pointed out, much like aloo gobi one would get in a restaurant, but it was still flavorful and tasty and warming.) In the comments, Jenny asked: “That Aloo Gobi looks good- but I looked at the recipe and it has some unusual ingredients- mango powder? Coriander leaves? Do you have those things or are you making a substitution?” I did not, in fact, have mango powder on hand. But I do NOW; I went to the South Asian grocery store and they had multiple varieties of mango powder so I bought some. I also got some Kashmiri red chili powder. I did not, however, get fenugreek leaves, mistakenly believing (and failing to look up until later) that the leaves are the same thing in my container of ground fenugreek. Oh no. The ground fenugreek is fenugreek seeds, and has a totally different flavor from the leaves. Oh well. Next time. The rest of the ingredients – including coriander leaves (cilantro) – I had on hand, and now I can make aloo gobi any old time I want. 

My CPAP machine comes with an app and gives me a daily score. This is very effective for me, because I like to get an A. Right now, I have a B, which is apparently due to the number of times I got up at night and removed my mask. As Allison noted, “I still don’t really understand them giving you a CPAP when I thought your problem was more insomnia-based, but I hope it helps!” I also still don’t really understand it either, Allison. And now I’m getting a B on my CPAP score because I get up too many times in the night and remove my mask. Am I not supposed to pee, CPAP App???? Or what if my cat is scratching the bench at the end of the bed? Am I supposed to just let him shred the upholstery???? And if my legs are twitching uncontrollably, am I just supposed to lie there and NOT SLEEP? Doubtful; you’d probably dock me points for being awake, too. Oh yes, look: hours of sleep do in fact earn points, and I got a score of 58 out of 70 for wearing my mask “only” 5.7 hours. FUN FUN FUN. 

    Okay, that’s all I have today. If you prefer to go check out today’s nonsense over at the book blog, I will see you there. (This is probably Way Too Much Suzanne, and I get that.) 

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    Five for Friday

    1. For the month of September, I have been waking up at 5:41 and getting out of bed at 6:00. This past week, I’ve been pushing it back a teeny bit; my alarm goes off at 5:21 and I get out of bed at 5:45. The cat has been extremely accommodating in terms of hopping into bed and purring loudly at me at about 4:20. My question is, how freaking early do I need to get up to be able to DO things? 

      Things I’d like to do: Lie in bed for 15 minutes to do the Wordle and Connections and possibly read a blog or two. Make some tea. Take care of the cat. Unload the dishwasher. Write a blog post. Spend 10 minutes watching cat videos with Carla. Get dressed. Eat something. Get out the door on time (7:15). In an ideal world, I would also be able to exercise and shower before we leave for school, but that seems much too ambitious. It’s still something I’d LIKE to do, though.

      Things I have been able to do: Lie in bed to do my word games. Make tea. Take care of the cat. Spend 5-10 minutes watching cat videos with Carla. Get dressed. Eat something (sometimes). We haven’t been out the door on time since the first week of school. Admittedly, this isn’t always my issue. But lately I have been scrambling to be moderately presentable and still be 15 minutes late. 

      Possibly I can squeak back my out-of-bed time to 5:00; but even then, I don’t know if I’d be able to get in a blog post. Definitely not exercise, too. If you exercise before work or school, HOW????

      One of the reasons I want to work exercise into my morning routine is because it’s often the first thing I jettison if the day doesn’t proceed as planned. For the past two days, I didn’t exercise as planned because my days got thrown out of whack. It’s not the end of the world, or anything; I don’t set exercise goals, so I can’t fail, take that perfectionism – and I did at least manage a decent walk on Wednesday – but it’s frustrating when I’m trying to prioritise exercise for my mental, physical, and future health. (The British/Canadian spelling was accidental but I’m keeping it. I think Ses are much prettier than Zs.) Plus, “exercise” is a catch-all term that includes showering, putting on clothing an actual reasonable person might wear, and possibly even doing my hair and/or makeup. Even if I do a shorter workout, and even if I take a ten-minute shower, and even if I throw my wet hair up in a claw clip instead of drying it, the Exercise Plus Shower Plus Getting Ready routine takes about an hour. I have no earthly idea where I’d get a whole extra hour in the morning. I can’t go to bed earlier than nine; Carla’s bedtime is 8:30 and I read to her for thirty minutes. And if I went to bed promptly at nine, I would never see my husband, which is an unacceptable tradeoff for exercise. Listen, I know I don’t really have anything to complain about here. My schedule is very flexible, for the most part. I guess I just keep on working in a workout where I can, sometimes sacrificing it to the whims of life.

      2. I had a baking success and a baking flop this week. The flop was the apple honey cake I made in a nod to Rosh Hashanah. It looked lovely – although I had expected the apple-covered portion to be much darker and more caramelized; not sure why, the photo on the recipe page is not dark and caramelized – and it was fine. But it wasn’t my favorite. The crumb was too big; I think it compares in crumb size, if not exact texture, to cornbread (although my husband disagrees). And the cake had, to my tongue, no flavor. Also, the apples weren’t caramelized enough. The other thing I baked were brownies. Since I was making them for a loved one who’d just had surgery, and since this person is trying to avoid excess sugar and carbs, I decided to try a sugar-free (ish), flourless brownie. The brownies are flavored with dark chocolate, dates, and vanilla, and get their fluffiness from eggs and baking soda. I was skeptical, since I really am not a fan of dates. But they turned out SO well. They are fluffy and soft, rich and chocolatey, and perfectly satisfying. The only real difference I noted between these brownies and “regular brownies” is that they have a slight coconutty flavor (because they are made with coconut oil). Carla loved them; the person I intended them for loved them; I loved them. My husband’s reaction was “these are weird.” Next time, I might try them with butter instead of coconut oil, although I didn’t mind the coconut essence. I am definitely making them again. I like how I didn’t have to chop up the dates; I just let my food processor do all the work. 

      3. After your extremely helpful comments last week, Carla and I (and the cat) tackled her bedroom on Tuesday. We got rid of so much stuff. My strategy was to tell her that I would clean her room for her, she just had to tell me what to do. She had complete control over what stayed and what went into the donation pile (or the trash). I was so ready to get a handle on the mess that I only faltered once, when I saw a beautiful sweater I bought her just last year in the donation bag. But she’s the one who has to wear the clothes. If she’s not going to wear it, it shouldn’t be in her closet. We also got rid of tons of old socks and underthings that are way too small, and I placed a big order for replacements. Even though I said I would do all the work, Carla ended up doing a ton of stuff herself. She organized all her dresser drawers, for instance. AND she did all of her own laundry. She even said it was fun. While I don’t expect that will last, I feel so much relief that her laundry is now HER problem. Her clothing selection is much more manageable and her room looks so much better. 

      Oh hello there, you can’t seriously think this drawer would be better suited to T-shirts, can you?

      4. This weekend, a friend I haven’t seen for years is bringing her daughters to stay with us. I am so excited to see her! And her children, whom I anticipate I will hardly recognize, it’s been so long. One thing I’m trying very hard to do is to resist the little voice in my head that keeps saying, “She’s going to think you got so fat.” My friend, though it should not matter in the least except in terms of the pride I feel for her, is a tiny person to begin with. But she’s also extremely fit – like, she literally has two World records in the fitness arena. My little inner voice, which apparently ignores what a nice and non-judgy person my friend is, thinks she will judge me for being large and soft. 

      Here are my coping thoughts: When I went to my twentieth college reunion a few years ago, I was shocked by how OLD some of my classmates seemed. Some of them were balding, or had grey hair, or looked like – gasp! – middle-aged moms. It was especially shocking to see these aging people next to my dear friends, who looked exactly the same as they’d looked twenty years before. Obviously, it wasn’t that my close friends remained unchanged while people I didn’t know well had aged poorly. It was that my love imbued the people dear to me with youth and beauty that transcends time. I experienced this phenomenon more recently, when I got to see a college friend perform with his college band. The bar was packed with a bunch of half-drunk middle-aged farts. But my friend and his band were exactly as they were back in college. Love is transformative in so many ways, and I think it can allow you to see your people in their best light. The way I look at my husband, a distinguished, respected physician who brings hope and relief to so many patients, and see only the cute charming finance major I met nearly a quarter century ago. Anyway, I am trying with all my heart to believe that my fit friend is going to arrive and see past my frumpy, overweight, perimenopausal self to her dear friend of many years.

      5. I have two recent purchases to recommend. One is a fidget toy. Carla apparently saw that a classmate had one, and she wanted one, too. So I caved and got it for her. It’s not silent, per se, but it’s very quiet – just makes a soft shuck when it changes shape. And it is very cool; the shape shifting is mesmerizing. Even the cat likes it. Speaking of the cat, we bought him yet another cat toy. (The poor cat is once again hiding under the bed; it’s been a traumatic week, and he does not do well with loud sounds. This time, the loud sound was me putting ice cubes in the dryer to de-wrinkle my duvet cover. He has never scratched me before, but I have three large gashes to commemorate this particular trauma.) Anyway: this toy is perfect for him. It has a little butterfly dangler on the top, it has a couple of balls on a track that he can push around, and it has a little fringey thing who pokes his fringey face out of hidey holes at random around the circumference of the base. This toy is electronic (uses batteries or a charger) and it has several settings. With one, just the fringey guy hides and appears. Another setting turns the butterfly dangler on, so that it spins, stops, and spins the opposite way. Another setting has both things happen either at once or one after another, I haven’t figured it out yet. It will turn itself off after a few minutes if the cat ignores it for awhile, and then it turns back on as soon as he touches it. Leo LOVES this thing. I put it up on top of a cabinet when he’s not using it (so he doesn’t get bored with it – cats get bored so easily) and he will walk over to the cabinet and look longingly at it and meow until I fetch it down for him. 

      Keeping this butterfly thing AND the little fringey guy in line is a very serious endeavor.