My mother is at the farm for the week. It has been great fun for me to share this life I live here, so different from my past and really so different from the way most people live. I learned many of my cooking skills from my Mom, one recipe from my childhood that I thought would be fun to share with you this week, particularly as we have carrots in the box is Carrot Cake. My Mom used to make this for us for breakfast, often without any cream cheese frosting to cut the sugar. We made two yesterday using Eatwell Carrots, Eatwell Eggs and Eatwell Flour and Liz’s (our former CSA manager) Pecans. Even though we made the cake with whole wheat flour it is absolutely delicious, light and moist! The trick with substituting our flour for white flour is to give it a chance to hydrate and so we played with that with this recipe and it worked splendidly. Don’t ask me which Eatwell flour, mine is always a mix of the bits of leftovers Nigel brings me:)
Lorraine’s Mom’s Carrot Cake with Eatwell Farm Whole Wheat Flour 1 lb Carrots, washed trimmed and grated 4 Eatwell Eggs 1 1/2 cups Vegetable Oil 2 cups Sugar of choice I used 1 1/2 cup total sugar which was plenty, 1/2 cup of it was brown sugar 1 1/2 tsp Cinnamon 1/4 tsp Nutmeg 2 cups Eatwell Flour, reserve 1/2 cup for the leavening 3/4 tsp Salt 1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder 1 tsp Baking Soda 1 cup Pecans, chopped
Cream the eggs and sugar with a mixer then pour in the oil and mix a few minutes longer. Add the spices and salt blending them well, then add the carrots. Mix the baking powder and baking soda with 1/2 cup of the flour and set aside for later. Add 1 1/2 cups of flour to the bowl, mix well, cover and let sit for 1 hour. This give the whole wheat flour time to absorb some of the liquid, becoming more hydrated. After the hour add the reserved flour leavening mix and the chopped nuts. We baked in a 6 x 13 lasagne dish at 350 F for 50 minutes, you can easily divide between loaf pans. Check for doneness by inserting a knife in the center, if it comes out clean you are good to go!