(no subject)
Apr. 9th, 2009 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickLet's examine the carrot cake from the distance of a week or so. I made the carrot cake on April 1 and allowed as how it was unsuccessful at that time but now I want to go over that in more detail.
The recipe I used was here. I actually followed the recipe as much as my nature allows for. I did not, for example, weigh the carrots. I bought a pound bag and I used what looked like 3/4 of them. I did not add the optional pineapple because I wanted a carrot cake that tasted like carrots. (I like pineapple just fine, thanks. Not against pineapple. Just wanted a carrot cake, not a pineappley cake with carrots in it.) But mostly, I followed the directions as written.
The cake I made was attractive and looked just like the picture on the recipe web page except I didn't coat the sides with chopped nuts because that's messy and a pain in the ass. It's for bakeries, not for normal humans. Also, all ya'll know that there's no way marzipan carrots are going to ever make an appearance on anything I've cooked. Ever. Marzipan carrots are for people who are baking for strangers and pastry display cases. Possibly also they're for those who baking for people who think marzipan carrots are cute. I don't know any people who, when presented with free cake from me, would be all demanding of me where dey marzipan carrots be at. All my friends are smart enough to avoid that sort of thing lest they be wearing cake. All of my family is smarter than that, even the family I don't much like. So, no marzipan carrots.
This cake had a good texture, a good level of moist, a nice crumb, and a very low-stress assembly. The batter was non-fussy and behaved exactly as the recipe said it would, even finished cooking in the allotted time and looked suitably done when it was done. The frosting went together as advertised, turned out spreadable and easy to work with in an unfussy and amenable sort of way. I have no complaints with the performance of the recipe as written. It's a very nicely-written recipe, easy to follow and will provide low-stress results that will be successful for most home bakers.
My complaint is with the result.
I am looking for a specific kind of carrot cake. Once, a couple of years ago, someone (I forget who) saved me a piece of carrot cake from some function he or she had attended. Might have been a wedding, anniversary party, something along those lines. Possibly a baby shower. The someone (a relative, I think) mit der cake persuaded me to eat a bite of said carrot cake. Now, I do not adore carrot cake. There was some arm-twisting going on vis a vis the carrot cake but I did eventually take a bite. That carrot cake was the Proust madeline of carrot cakes. It was the Ur-carrot cake, the carrot cake that all other carrot cakes want to grow up to be, the primal earth mother of carrot cakes. It was, hands down, the very best carrot cake I have ever eaten in my life. I can still taste it in my mind.
I want the recipe for that carrot cake. Set the bar high, say I. (I arrived at the perfect gingersnap after some trial and error with a less-than-perfect recipe. Therefore, it may be possible to get to the perfect carrot cake by way of starting with a recipe that is close and tweaking it. I'm certainly going to try.)
Okay, so what made THE carrot cake fantastic and how did this pale imitation of a trial cake fall short?
THE carrot cake had better frosting. It was cream cheese frosting but it was stiffer and less sweet than the frosting on the trial cake. I think that the frosting on THE carrot cake was pretty much cream cheese -n- powdered sugar but it had a lot more cream cheese and a lot less powdered sugar than the frosting on the trial cake. And some butter, I think, makes the cream cheese spread better. Vanilla extract, too, in there. The trial cake also had lemon zest in the frosting, which I actually kind of enjoyed (in an "eat frosting with a spoon" sort of way) but which detracted from the flavor of the cake. The frosting should complement the cake, provide a foil for it. The frosting should not overshadow the cake and the trial cake frosting, it did. Frosting with less sugar, more cream cheese, no lemon zest. Got it.
THE carrot cake had more spices than just cinnamon. The trial cake had cinnamon only. The cinnamon went well enough with the carrots, but it did not highlight their flavor or enable them to shine. I am not sure (at this late date) what exactly THE carrot cake had in it besides cinnamon, but I'm looking to nutmeg and/or cloves as suspects. Possibly also might could be some ginger in there. There was a complexity to the spices in THE cake that was not present in the trial cake. Ginger goes well with carrots and would perk up pineapple nicely if there were pineapple in the cake, which there might have been.
THE carrot cake had a denser, wetter texture that was yet not soggy. The trial cake was more along the light-n-fluffy spectrum. I suspect (but do not know) that THE carrot cake contained pre-cooked and pureed carrots as a wetting agent along with the usual grated raw carrot ingredient. There might also have been pineapple in there. I'll be experimenting along these lines with future iterations of carrot cake, obviously. Note to self: could also probably cut the oil content somewhat b/c adding wet ingredients here. Too much oil is ick and canolas can't be all *that* edible.
THE carrot cake was also about six shades darker (cake part) than the trial cake. More carrots, I think. I don't rightly know. Cooked, pureed carrots would make the cake a lot darker. (My brain says cooked, pureed carrots. A lot. It's jumping up and down and waving its arms. Where does it get this crap?) Maybe cooked, pureed carrots would also make the cake more carrotier? (Lack of carrot flavor was another issue with the trial cake.)
THE carrot cake was not horribly sweet. The trial cake turned out to be sweeter than I'd have chosen. The icing for the trial cake was too sweet, but the trial cake itself was also cloying. (This is a problem with many dessert items. *sigh* I do like sugar. I do. But "sweet" is not the only flavor note that a dessert should offer.) I want a less-sweet cake. The carrot flavor should not be buried in sweet. I've made a note. THE carrot cake was rich and sweet but not killer sweet. It was more rich and moist and approached satisfying from that end rather than a full-frontal assault of the sweet.
Both cakes had walnuts in them. I like walnuts in my carrot cake, so this was a good.
Neither cake had (as I recall) coconut. I like coconut but I don't remember any of it in THE carrot cake. Coconut has a distinctive structure and I'm pretty sure I would have noticed it if it had been in the cake. (Many carrot cake recipes that claim excellence contain both coconut and pineapple. It's like they think they are pina coladas or something.) I'm going forward without coconut for the time being, see what I can accomplish without it. However, I am not closing this line of inquiry entirely. Coconut adds a richness and a nice moisture to things without adding too much sweet. (Assuming you are using real coconut and not the sweetened stuff in bags.)
The nextvictim candidate in the carrot cake recipe world is here. I do think I'll simplify the spices somewhat -- she's going overboard there with the allspice, gonna substitute ginger instead -- and try 4 oz of cooked, pureed carrots in lieu of the pineapple, see how that goes. Also, I'm going to twink with the "vegetable oil" thing. I think I can drop that by half a cup and then sub part of the remaining amount with melted butter. (You do realize I'm going to bitch like hell if the next iteration of carrot cake doesn't work even though I've spent roughly a third of this post explaining how I'm going to not-follow-the-recipe, right? Just, y'know, be prepared for the eventuality. That's all I'm saying.)
The frosting recipe included with this cake recipe is totally not what I want and I'm going to do my own thing on that front. Now that I've read about a dozen cream cheese frosting recipes, I figure that once you get "cream cheese" and "some butter, less than the cream cheese" and "powdered sugar to taste", it's all one. I think the original frosting wasn't bad, if I omit the lemon zest, double the cream cheese part, add about another 2 Tbsp. butter, and halve the sugar. Betcha that would give me a cream cheese frosting I could totally work with.
Results this weekend, natch. I'm sure you're all *just* as absorbed with recreating a near-mythical perfect carrot cake as I am.
The recipe I used was here. I actually followed the recipe as much as my nature allows for. I did not, for example, weigh the carrots. I bought a pound bag and I used what looked like 3/4 of them. I did not add the optional pineapple because I wanted a carrot cake that tasted like carrots. (I like pineapple just fine, thanks. Not against pineapple. Just wanted a carrot cake, not a pineappley cake with carrots in it.) But mostly, I followed the directions as written.
The cake I made was attractive and looked just like the picture on the recipe web page except I didn't coat the sides with chopped nuts because that's messy and a pain in the ass. It's for bakeries, not for normal humans. Also, all ya'll know that there's no way marzipan carrots are going to ever make an appearance on anything I've cooked. Ever. Marzipan carrots are for people who are baking for strangers and pastry display cases. Possibly also they're for those who baking for people who think marzipan carrots are cute. I don't know any people who, when presented with free cake from me, would be all demanding of me where dey marzipan carrots be at. All my friends are smart enough to avoid that sort of thing lest they be wearing cake. All of my family is smarter than that, even the family I don't much like. So, no marzipan carrots.
This cake had a good texture, a good level of moist, a nice crumb, and a very low-stress assembly. The batter was non-fussy and behaved exactly as the recipe said it would, even finished cooking in the allotted time and looked suitably done when it was done. The frosting went together as advertised, turned out spreadable and easy to work with in an unfussy and amenable sort of way. I have no complaints with the performance of the recipe as written. It's a very nicely-written recipe, easy to follow and will provide low-stress results that will be successful for most home bakers.
My complaint is with the result.
I am looking for a specific kind of carrot cake. Once, a couple of years ago, someone (I forget who) saved me a piece of carrot cake from some function he or she had attended. Might have been a wedding, anniversary party, something along those lines. Possibly a baby shower. The someone (a relative, I think) mit der cake persuaded me to eat a bite of said carrot cake. Now, I do not adore carrot cake. There was some arm-twisting going on vis a vis the carrot cake but I did eventually take a bite. That carrot cake was the Proust madeline of carrot cakes. It was the Ur-carrot cake, the carrot cake that all other carrot cakes want to grow up to be, the primal earth mother of carrot cakes. It was, hands down, the very best carrot cake I have ever eaten in my life. I can still taste it in my mind.
I want the recipe for that carrot cake. Set the bar high, say I. (I arrived at the perfect gingersnap after some trial and error with a less-than-perfect recipe. Therefore, it may be possible to get to the perfect carrot cake by way of starting with a recipe that is close and tweaking it. I'm certainly going to try.)
Okay, so what made THE carrot cake fantastic and how did this pale imitation of a trial cake fall short?
THE carrot cake had better frosting. It was cream cheese frosting but it was stiffer and less sweet than the frosting on the trial cake. I think that the frosting on THE carrot cake was pretty much cream cheese -n- powdered sugar but it had a lot more cream cheese and a lot less powdered sugar than the frosting on the trial cake. And some butter, I think, makes the cream cheese spread better. Vanilla extract, too, in there. The trial cake also had lemon zest in the frosting, which I actually kind of enjoyed (in an "eat frosting with a spoon" sort of way) but which detracted from the flavor of the cake. The frosting should complement the cake, provide a foil for it. The frosting should not overshadow the cake and the trial cake frosting, it did. Frosting with less sugar, more cream cheese, no lemon zest. Got it.
THE carrot cake had more spices than just cinnamon. The trial cake had cinnamon only. The cinnamon went well enough with the carrots, but it did not highlight their flavor or enable them to shine. I am not sure (at this late date) what exactly THE carrot cake had in it besides cinnamon, but I'm looking to nutmeg and/or cloves as suspects. Possibly also might could be some ginger in there. There was a complexity to the spices in THE cake that was not present in the trial cake. Ginger goes well with carrots and would perk up pineapple nicely if there were pineapple in the cake, which there might have been.
THE carrot cake had a denser, wetter texture that was yet not soggy. The trial cake was more along the light-n-fluffy spectrum. I suspect (but do not know) that THE carrot cake contained pre-cooked and pureed carrots as a wetting agent along with the usual grated raw carrot ingredient. There might also have been pineapple in there. I'll be experimenting along these lines with future iterations of carrot cake, obviously. Note to self: could also probably cut the oil content somewhat b/c adding wet ingredients here. Too much oil is ick and canolas can't be all *that* edible.
THE carrot cake was also about six shades darker (cake part) than the trial cake. More carrots, I think. I don't rightly know. Cooked, pureed carrots would make the cake a lot darker. (My brain says cooked, pureed carrots. A lot. It's jumping up and down and waving its arms. Where does it get this crap?) Maybe cooked, pureed carrots would also make the cake more carrotier? (Lack of carrot flavor was another issue with the trial cake.)
THE carrot cake was not horribly sweet. The trial cake turned out to be sweeter than I'd have chosen. The icing for the trial cake was too sweet, but the trial cake itself was also cloying. (This is a problem with many dessert items. *sigh* I do like sugar. I do. But "sweet" is not the only flavor note that a dessert should offer.) I want a less-sweet cake. The carrot flavor should not be buried in sweet. I've made a note. THE carrot cake was rich and sweet but not killer sweet. It was more rich and moist and approached satisfying from that end rather than a full-frontal assault of the sweet.
Both cakes had walnuts in them. I like walnuts in my carrot cake, so this was a good.
Neither cake had (as I recall) coconut. I like coconut but I don't remember any of it in THE carrot cake. Coconut has a distinctive structure and I'm pretty sure I would have noticed it if it had been in the cake. (Many carrot cake recipes that claim excellence contain both coconut and pineapple. It's like they think they are pina coladas or something.) I'm going forward without coconut for the time being, see what I can accomplish without it. However, I am not closing this line of inquiry entirely. Coconut adds a richness and a nice moisture to things without adding too much sweet. (Assuming you are using real coconut and not the sweetened stuff in bags.)
The next
The frosting recipe included with this cake recipe is totally not what I want and I'm going to do my own thing on that front. Now that I've read about a dozen cream cheese frosting recipes, I figure that once you get "cream cheese" and "some butter, less than the cream cheese" and "powdered sugar to taste", it's all one. I think the original frosting wasn't bad, if I omit the lemon zest, double the cream cheese part, add about another 2 Tbsp. butter, and halve the sugar. Betcha that would give me a cream cheese frosting I could totally work with.
Results this weekend, natch. I'm sure you're all *just* as absorbed with recreating a near-mythical perfect carrot cake as I am.
