This recipe is from Professional Baking by Wayne Gisslen (a Le Cordon Bleu book we used in pastry school). It’s a from scratch butter cake that has a lovely carrot cake flavors, but butter cake texture (not the typical oil based dense/moist carrot cake), so it works really well for stacking and carving.
Ingredients
- Measurements in U.S, Metric, % of total recipe
- Butter 9 oz, 300 g, 60
- Brown Sugar 15 oz, 500 g, 100
- Salt 0.25 oz, 8 g, 1.5
- Eggs 9 oz, 300 g, 60
- Cake Flour 15 oz, 500 g, 100
- Baking Powder 0.5 oz, 15 g, 3
- Baking Soda 0.05 oz (3/8 tsp), 1.5 g, 0.3
- Cinnamon 0.08 oz (1 1/2 tsp), 2.5 g, 0.5
- Nutmeg 0.03 oz (3/8 tsp), 1 g, 0.2
- Whole Milk 10.5 oz, 350 g, 70
- Finely grated carrots 6 oz, 200 g, 40
- Finely chopped nuts 3 oz, 100 g, 20
- Orange Zest 1 tsp, 3 g, 0.6
Instructions
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Creaming Method (cream butter/sugar until light, add eggs one at a time. alternate sifted dry ingredients and milk, starting and ending with dry ingredients)
Fold in carrots, zest and nuts (walnuts or pecans…optional of course…I also add in some coconut, make sure you finely chop the nuts and coconut if you’re carving the cake)
Bake it as you would any butter cake…350 to 375f (180-190c) for 20 to 35 minutes (depending on pan size)
Note: this is a professional recipe, so measurements are by weight. It makes scaling a recipe up or down much easier, and more accurate.
For a not-too-sweet-extra-cream-cheesy icing/filling, I like one that I got from zoebakes dot com:
Cream Cheese Icing with Lyle’s Golden Syrup
1 (8 ounce) package of Philly’s Cream Cheese (I am really brand loyal, having tried lots!), softened
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 Tablespoon Lyle’s Golden Syrup (use honey if you are in a pinch)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Combine all the ingredients in a medium sized bowl and cream together until smooth. I used a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip to decorate these cupcakes. You may want to double the icing recipe just in case you find yourself dipping into the bowl with a spoon!
thanks so much, i been looking for a dense carrot cake recipe, and not to sweet cream cheese frosting. I just wish it could be measurement by cups and tbsp, (i do not have scale )
Josefina - the more you bake, the more you'll appreciate having a scale (It's soooo much faster to weigh your ingredients than it is to measure.) Also, if you want perfectly even cake layers, then you fill the pans while they're on the scale. That way you get exactly the same amount of batter in each pan. Do yourself a favor and buy a scale. You'll learn to love it!
Thanks, I do not have one but i love the idea of using I been looking for one, but i do not know which one could be inexpensive and good as the same time. Can you recommend one. Amazon has a lot of scale, but i was wondering if any scale can be use to measure cake ingredients
I made this last week and I really liked it. I don't have anything to compare it to since the last time I ate carrot cake was in Jr. High. It was wonderful the day of, but by the second or third days it seemed to get dry. I used a cheap scale that I bought on Amazon and used the gram measurements, since I thought it would be more accurate on may scale.
Does this recipe make 2 8" rounds? Trying to decide how much I need or if I would need to double it.