Carrot Cake Recipe

Moist Carrot Cake Recipe.

This old fashioned cake with walnuts and raisins, was popular, circa 1957.

I received this Carrot Cake Recipe from my supervisor at Southern Bell Telephone Company in 1958.

No frosting was included with the recipe.

I thought it was because the cake was more like a torte than a layer cake.

Cream Cheese Frosting for this cake first appeared in print in 1969.

That is when I first saw it in print.

Carrot Cake

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
  
  
• 1 cup vegetable oil
  
  
• 3 egg yolks, beaten
  
  
• 2 1/2 tablespoons hot water
  
  
• 1 1/2 cups sifted plain flour
  
  
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
  
  
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
  
  
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  
  
• 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
  
  
• 1 large carrot, grated
  
  
• 1 cup walnuts, chopped*
  
  
• 1/3 cup dark raisins
  
  
• 3 egg whites, stiffly beaten

Mix sugar, oil, egg yolks and hot water in mixing bowl.

Sift together flour, baking powder, soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Stir into bowl mixture and mix well.

Fold in carrots, nuts, and raisins. Fold in egg whites.

Pour into two prepared* 8" or 9" baking pans.

Bake in preheated 325 F. oven about 40 minutes.

Remove from oven, let sit in pan about 5 minutes and remove to rack.


May be served warm immediately or frosted with Cream Cheese Frosting.


It is delicious served plain with whipped cream, ice cream or Greek Yogurt.

Delicious Lemon Curd is an excellent choice and favorite topping for this cake.

Honestly, this cake is so rich and awesome by itself, it does not need to be frosted.

It is also a great keeper, getting more moist as it sits a day or two.

*You can substitute pecans or any other nut you like for the walnuts, if you prefer.

However, if you like walnuts I suggest you use those because there is just something about this cake that begs for the flavor of walnut.

Tip

*Cakes dislodge best from baking pans that are greased, then lined with waxed paper or parchment paper (my preference), cut to fit the pan, greased again and sprinkle lightly with flour.

Carrot Cake Recipe
With Pineapple

• 1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
  
  
• 1 cup white granulated sugar


• 1 teaspoon baking powder


• 1 teaspoon baking soda


• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger


• 2/3 cup salad oil (I use peanut oil)


• 2 large eggs


• I cup grated carrots


• 1/2 cup crushed pineapple with pineapple juice


• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  
  
• 1/2 cup coarse chopped pecans.
  

Sift together sifted flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and salt into a stand mixer bowl.

Add oil, eggs, grated carrots, crushed pineapple and vanilla extract.


Stir together with a spoon until all is moistened.

Turn mixer on medium speed and beat for 2 minutes.

Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl.

Fold in chopped pecans.

Pour into a 9" x 9" x 2" inch baking pan that has been lined with parchment paper, lightly greased and sprinkles lightly with flour.

Bake in a preheat oven 350F. for 30-35 minutes or until cake tests done when tested with a toothpick in the center.

Remove from oven and let cool 10 minutes.

Run a knife around edges to loosen cake and invert on a cake cooling rack.

When cake has completely cooled place on a cake plate.

Frost with Pineapple Cream Cheese Frosting.

May be served plain without frosting and served plain or wit vanilla ice cream or Homemade Whipped Cream as in the top Carrol Cake Recipe.

Cut into squares or rectangles to serve.

Pineapple Cream Cheese Frosting

• 1 (6 oz.) package cream cheese, softened at room temperature


• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, at room temperature


• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (can use white vanilla for a brighter white frosting)


• 3 cups sifted powdered sugar
  
  
• pineapple juice, as needed
  

Cream cheese and butter about 30 seconds on medium mixer speed.


Add a little powdered sugar at a time, creaming well after each addition.

When the frosting starts to get too thick start adding pineapple juice a tablespoonful at a time to keep it at a good spreading consistency.

Turn speed to high speed to cream a butter cream type frosting.

You may need to adjust the amount of sugar or pineapple juice to get it to the right spreading consistency, depending on the temperature in the kitchen.

History Of The Carrot Cake Recipe

According to food historians, Carrot Cake Recipe as we know it today, probably evolved from carrot pudding in Medivieval Times.

George Washington served a Carrot Tea Cake Noverber 25, 1783

The first Carrot Cake Recipe that can be found to date in the United States was published by a women's club cookbook, in Wichita, Kansas, 1929, titled "The Twentieth Century Bride's Cookbook".

Then, according to my historical source,  the Carrot Cake Recipe seemed to disappear from cookbooks until Peg Bracken included it in one of her newspaper columns in the early 1960s or 1970s.

Please note above, I was given the handwritten recipe by my supervisor in 1958.

 
I don't know if the dates are incorrect concerning Peg Bracken's newspaper column or the recipe I was given was published elsewhere around that time.

I personally own dozens of old cookbooks and I can not find a single Carrot Cake Recipe listed in any of them before the 1960's.

Related Pages

Orange Coconut Cake

Pig Pickin' Cake

Pineapple Cake

Pineapple Coconut Cake

Return to Old Fashioned Cake Recipes


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