This easy carrot cake recipe is heavy, moist, and loaded with good things,as you can see in the picture above. It keeps well in the refrigerator for a week (if it lasts that long). Grating the carrots goes much faster if you use a food processor, but you can use a small tooth on a hand grater to make fine 1″ – 2″ shreds. Apart from that, you can make this easy carrot cake and the frosting without any special appliances.

Carrot cake ingredients can be substituted, except for the carrots, of course. Try 2 cups of applesauce for the pineapple, walnuts for the pecans, add raisins or chopped dates, swap nutmeg with pumpkin pie spice or allspice, etc. Add the zest of an orange to the batter and use the juice in the frosting (might need a little extra powdered sugar, though). This recipe makes 18 good-sized servings, so if you want, cut it in half and use an 8″ x 8″ baking dish or pan, and same with the frosting recipe.

Oven 350F

Spray or lightly oil a 9″ x 13″ baking dish

In a large bowl, beat together:
4 large eggs
3/4 c oil
1/2 c applesauce
1 20 oz can of crushed pineapple, drained
1 c white sugar
1 c packed brown sugar
1 Tb vanilla

Now sprinkle evenly across the liquid ingredients:
2 c flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tb cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
And stir it all in evenly and thoroughly.

Now stir in:
1 lb peeled and finely shredded carrots
1 cup chopped pecans

Pour into the prepared baking dish and bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean and not sticky. Cool to room temperature and then cover and refrigerate until ready to frost.

Cream Cheese Frosting

A electric hand mixer makes short work of this, but if the butter and cream cheese are sufficiently softened (by bringing them to room temperature), you can get away with some vigorous stirring with a wooden spoon.

Cream together:
1 stick softened butter
8 oz softened cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla

Add:
3 – 3 1/2 c powdered sugar, a cup at a time, until smooth and spreadable. Spread on top of the chilled carrot cake.

This same recipe will make a lovely layer cake if you lightly oil and dust with flour two 9″ round cake pans and divide the batter evenly between them. Bake for 35-45 minutes. The frosting recipe makes enough for the top of the cake and the middle filling; double it if you want plenty to frost the sides as well.

And there you have it,  one real easy carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. If you give it a go, let me know how it turns out for you!

There’s been a lot of stuff in the news about the Great Egg Recall thanks to a salmonella outbreak, but there are good eggs out there and there are eggs in recipes everywhere. For all you cooks who haven’t seen an egg separated before, I’ve got a short little video for you. Read the rest of this entry »

I finally had a chance to make ratatouille in the manner of the one Remy makes in the Pixar film “Ratatouille,” which I wrote about a few weeks ago. A little research revealed that the real-life version was a creation by Chef Thomas Keller of the French Laundry restaurant in California, and named Confit Byaldi. Unlike the more usual ratatouille that is cooked like a stew, Keller’s/Remy’s gourmet version is a fanned spiral of thinly-sliced vegetables atop a thickened tomato/pepper sauce (piperade) and baked slowly for 2 1/2 hours. The flavors are intense and the texture of the vegetables remains intact, which is especially appealing for those who do not care for soggy eggplant or zucchini.

Now this recipe, and some similar ones from others who attempted to recreate Remy’s concoction, tend to have more steps than I would consider ideal for a minimalist cooking approach. Therefore I set myself the challenge of Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a little something for end of summer gatherings when you want to serve watermelon without the mess, and yet not spend half a day scooping out melon balls: Read the rest of this entry »

There are few recipes more minimalist than no-knead bread: flour, salt, yeast, and water mixed together, left to sit and ferment for half a day, then dumped into a lidded pot and baked for an hour. The original Jim Lahey recipe published in the New York Times back in 2006 has been tweaked and adapted by probably everyone who has ever tried it, including myself. I got so hooked on making it that I stopped bothering with making baguettes, and my long-sought Chicago Metallic baguette pan was looking quite forlorn.

So I got to thinking, is there a way to use the no-knead dough for baguettes? Read the rest of this entry »