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 […]
READ ONThat all depends on what you mean. “Good for you” and “cake” are words that don’t really go together, since cake is almost by definition an indulgent, once-in-a-while treat. All cakes, even “healthy” ones, contain large amounts of concentrated carbohydrates and fat. All those things are nutrients, albeit nutrients which in large enough doses can […]
READ ONCream cheese’s gaminess and gumminess make it a rather odd base for a frosting. Even so, that flavor has become the classic accompaniment to an American carrot cake, and who am I to argue? I just prefer mine cut with butter, that’s all. Is that so wrong? Combine these ingredients in a mixer fitted with […]
READ ONThe nuts and bolts of this cake recipe are pure Rose Levy Beranbaum, as found in her latest book, Rose’s Heavely Cakes. It differs mainly in the spicing, since in my universe a carrot cake is really a classic spice cake dressed up in hippie garb. This cake is moist but not overly so, and […]
READ ONBecause they’re sweet. Next to sugar beets, carrots contain more sugar than any other vegetable. Being root crops, they have a longer seasonal availability than fruit, and once harvested can be kept longer. No wonder then that carrots have played a starring role in a number of sweet preparations over the centuries, at least when […]
READ ONOh sure, reader Nora, ask me a hard question on a Monday! I’m barely awake and I’m supposed to talk physics! All right then, but be prepared: if I don’t make sense, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself. People who are actually knowledgeable about physics, please check me. You amateur photographers out there […]
READ ONLet’s have a show of hands. You? You? Yeah, me too. I’ve never liked it. I think it’s because I’m old enough to remember life in the early 70’s, when carrot cakes were believed to be healthy alternatives to conventional layer cakes. I suppose if you made them the way the hippie folk of the […]
READ ONIt’s been a long and demanding week, friends, but the missus arrived back home over the weekend. I was relieved, but not nearly to the degree that my young daughters were. They were well tired of being sent to school looking like 1930’s-era Dust Bowl survivors. What can I say, I’m not skilled at laundry […]
READ ONReader Chana asks: I was just reading this post on invert sugar (which I have never used). My question: why use gelatin in sorbet, etc. if glucose sugar will do the trick? Do they do the same thing? I’ve never used gelatin, either. It tends to be an animal product (i.e., not kosher), although I […]
READ ONTeachers’ conferences are interfering with life as I know it this week. The missus is off to a conference in Philly and young Josephine’s school is off most of the week. Which leaves yours truly as Mr. Mom on a near full-time basis. Carrot cake came out of nowhere but it seems like a fun […]
READ ON