Craig's Recipes

Carrot Cake

This is my Mom's recipe for Carrot Cake. It is delicious. I've added a few of my own notes and touches to the recipe. This is the classic carrot cake recipe.

Ingredients

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1½ cups corn oil

4 eggs -- unbeaten

½ cup walnuts -- broken

3 cups finely shredded or grated carrots -- about a pound of carrots

½ cup raisins

Preparing the Cake

I don't generally grate the carrots by hand. I'm lazy and use a Cuisinart™ food processor with the finest shredding disk.

In a large bowl, mix the dry (first five) ingredients well.  I do this in the bowl of my KitchenAid® mixer [amazon.com], but do it by hand using a whisk.

Mix in oil and eggs. Fold in carrots, nuts, and raisins. I use my KitchenAid mixer for this, on the lowest speed.

Grease and flour two round or square 9" pans.  I generally just spray the pan with cooking spray, then flour the pan, tapping to move the flour around and coat all surfaces, then discarding excess flour.

Bake at least 45 minutes at 300 degrees Farenheit.

Check to see if done. The cake should pull away from the edges of the pan, and a toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean.  If not done, then put back in for another 15 minutes and check again. Repeat.

Allow to cool well. Let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then remove to cooling racks. I usually leave the cake on cooling racks overnight.

Frost with Cream Cheese Frosting.

Notes :

Sometimes I make a double recipe and use three cake pans to make a triple layer cake.  You have to be careful when baking this though, as the batter is likely to overflow if you use just three pans for a double recipe.

 

You can garnish with orange zest -- the outer-most orange part of the orange peel.