To pulp or not to pulp?

Reader Hillary asks:

I’ve read that pulping the carrots that go into carrot cake adds a lot of moisture. It sounds from your post on nutritional benefits that it would also have the effect of make more of the beta-carotene bioavailable. Yet you call for grated carrot in the recipe. Should it just be carrot pulp instead?

Actually no. The points about the moisture and the beta-carotene are true, however it’s possible to make a cake too moist. In my view, carrot pulp makes for an overly dense and almost mushy cake. Stick with the grater, I say.