Making a Real Carrot Cake

As the weather become a little more fall like I am much more tempted to make warm comforting meals. My husband has a real sweet tooth so I decided to take advantage of the abundance of carrots at the Farmer’s Market and make a real carrot cake. Carrot cakes often have a thick cream cheese frosting but this cake has a rum infused glaze.

Use your food processor fitted with a shredding disk to make a simple job of grating up a pound of carrots!

Real Carrot Cake

Ingredients:

Cake:

3 cups plus 2 tsp. Flour
2 tsp. Baking powder
2 tsp. Baking soda
2 tsp. Cinnamon
½ tsp. Salt
1 cup walnuts, chopped
1 cup raisins
5 large eggs, room temperature
1 ¾ cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 pound carrots, peeled and grated

Topping:

½ cup dry white wine of vermouth
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 Tbsp. buttermilk
1 tsp. dark rum

Directions:

For the cake:

Adjust the racks in your oven to the middle position and preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 12-cup Bundt pan. Whisk the 3 cups of flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a medium bowl. Toss the walnuts, raisins and 2 tsp. flour in a small bowl until well coated.

With an electric mixer at medium-high beat the eggs and sugar until combined. Lower the speed to medium and slowly add the oil, turn the speed back to high and beat until the mixture is light and creamy. Gently stir in the flour mixture, the walnuts and raisins and the carrots until well combined. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50-60 minutes or until the cake is done. Cool the real carrot cake in the pan for 30 minutes and then turn onto a wire rack to cool completely. This will take at least an hour.

Once the cake is cool brush the top with the vermouth or wine. Whisk the confectioners’ sugar, buttermilk and run in a medium bowl. Drizzle over the cake. Serve. This cake can be stored at room temperature of up to 5 days.

Serving this real carrot cake is a perfect way to welcome in the fall season.