ok - this is NOT my carrot cake... but it should have been!
One of my friends was celebrating his 49th birthday and I offered to bake his cake. He wanted a carrot cake, and his wife volunteered a recipe that she had used when they first started dating, explaining that it was his favorite.
So I baked the carrot cake from scratch - and since I'm always playing "Beat the Clock", I didn't want to shred the carrots myself. Time is money ya know, so i bought a bag of carrots already shredded at the grocery store.
The recipe called for pineapple, golden raisins, carrots and walnuts. I baked it the cake pan I normally use - and after it had cooled, I put it in the frig overnight. The next morning I pulled it out, iced it with cream cheese frosting, sprinkled walnuts on top, just like the photo above and put it back in the refrigerator till we were ready to celebrate.
Wishes were wished, candles were blown and I cut into the cake and started serving it up. Now, I didn't have my reading glasses on and with contacts alone, I can see distance but not up close detail. Everyone got their piece and were busily enjoying it when my hubs piped up... " why are these carrots Green?"
HORROR STRUCK IMMEDIATE AND DEEP!
I whipped out my readers to inspect the cake and sure enough, there were pieces of carrot that were orange and there were plenty of green ones and even some that were 1/2 orange 1/2 green! Normally when I make a carrot cake, I use baby food - so this was definitely a first for me.
What is even more comical is that when I was preparing the batter on Friday evening, I ran out of vanilla and went next door to my new neighbors house. I introduced myself to her husband (whom I've never met but waved hello to for a month now). I told his wife about my delimna with the ingredients for the cake, minus the vanilla and asked if she might have 4 tsp. I could borrow? She said she had been sick with food poisoning from some roast beef she ate - but was doing better and of course I was welcome to her vanilla.
My original intent was to thank her for the vanilla by offering a couple of pieces of cake. But after I saw the green carrots, there was just NO WAY I was going to take some of this cake to say thanks to a girl who had just gotten over 1 bout of ptomaine!!!
I think I need to come up with another plan, lol!!
By the way, I googled about the carrots because it was the craziest thing - what I found out was that Organic carrots don't have a lot of the chemicals and/or additives that normal carrots have in order to keep their colour a bright vibrant orange. Because of this, baking soda can interact with the carrot and turn them green, especially if you add them to the wet ingredients.
hmmm... sounds good - I'm sticking with that one!
now, would anyone care for some carrot / zuccini cake ??
As I was wandering through the store in overdrive (rememeber - I only had 30 minutes until the doors closed), I spied an awesome old double handled basket that will look wonderfully perfect in my kitchen... full of something flowering maybe? Probably have to wait for this weekend though, to pull out my ladder and get up there - the area is full of coffee grinders and old scales right now. This is a large basket too - it measures almost 20" long ... and for $12, I couldn't say no!
From the benefit ride in 2008, enough money was raised to:
