Classic Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Name: Classic Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Yield: Makes one 8-inch, 2-layer cake (serves 8 to 10) or 12 cupcakes
Ingredients: ½ cup (50 grams) walnuts, toasted and chopped; ¾ cup (150 grams) canola oil; 1 cup (220 grams) packed light brown sugar; 2 eggs; ½ teaspoon kosher salt; ½ teaspoon baking soda; ½ teaspoon baking powder; 12 ounces (340 grams) cream cheese, left at room temperature for 4 hours; ½ cup (1 stick/114 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature; ⅔ cups (230 grams) confectioners’ sugar; 1 small carrot; 1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar; ¾ cup (180 grams) water; 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (160 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour; ½ teaspoon vanilla extract; 2 cups (260 grams) tightly packed shredded carrots; ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon; ¼ teaspoon ground ginger; ½ cup (80 grams) raisins; 3 tablespoons nonfat buttermilk

Preparation info

Makes one 8-inch, 2-layer cake (serves
8 to 10
)

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Flour

By Joanne Chang

Published 2010

About

People often ask me why I switched from being a four-star-restaurant pastry chef to making pastries in a bakery. If I could give them only one example of why, it would be a slice of this carrot cake. Restaurant desserts are like the popular kids in high school: beautiful, dressed up, suave, well put together on the outside . . . and on the inside sometimes they are truly wonderful and sometimes they still need a little more work. Bakery pastries, on the other hand, don’t hide inside a fancy