Nancy's Moist Carrot Cake

Recipes can forge an unlikely bond at times.  I grew up in a small Utah town, and like most people - we didn't choose our neighbors.  Sometimes you hit the jackpot with great neighbors.  Other times, well... it takes years (and effort and shared experiences) to discover they are good as gold deep inside.

My parents tried for years to become friends with one of our neighbors, but there was always a conflict.  One word - DOGS.  This went on the entire time I lived at home, and up until the year before my mother passed away.  When the breadwinner of that household passed away, a sweet friendship was finally allowed to bloom between my mother and her neighbor.  The interesting thing was they had always admired each other... through their recipes in the ward cookbook.  

A ward cookbook is a magical thing.  It's like sharing your DNA.  The cherished family recipes that define you are taken and tried in another person's home and they "adopt" them as their own.  I do it all the time.  My mother's ward cookbook is one of my cherished possessions.  In it, she has written her evaluation of each recipe.  Some have glowing recommendations - and then there are the recipes that have "NO!" in bold letters in the margin.  

                       

This recipe was obviously well loved and splattered with who knows what.  Mom's handwritten notes in the margin are now blurry.  I can't make it QUITE like Mom's, but it is the best carrot cake I've ever had.  I'm sure Nancy misses my mother, and someday their friendship will continue.  

Just a few tips:  I've always used a large 20-oz can of crushed pineapple - but be sure to squeeze most of the liquid out first.  I use the finest shredder on my food processor for the carrots.  You might want to mix by hand once you add the carrots so you don't end up with a tangled mess in your beaters.  Nancy added coconut and chopped nuts to the top of her carrot cake.  And... in case you hadn't noticed - this carrot cake is not a beautiful thing when you slice it.  So MANY good things mixed in make it a challenge to cut flawlessly.  But take a bite, and you won't care.  

I always tell my kids that only "interesting" people love carrot cake - it's off limits to those who haven't lived long enough to enjoy nuts, raisins, and all those "textures" interesting adults love.

Moist Chocolate Layer Cake with Peppermint Cream

Seems like the pumpkin phase just left us, and now it's Peppermint!  As I was putting away all the Christmas decor, it seemed such a shame to just toss the peppermint candy.  At a recent Relief Society dinner, my wonderful friend Pat (who is a fabulous caterer) served a delicious dessert.  Using a Costco American Chocolate Layer Cake, she stepped it up a notch by topping slices with whipped cream and crushed peppermint candy.  

I did a lot of searching online for a similar type of cake, and found one on King Arthur Flour website.  It guides you through a unique mixing method where the fats (butter & oil) are incorporated into the dry ingredients first, then adding the liquids and eggs.  I thought it looked interesting, and it turned out well.  A little more bother than I usually like to go to, but I would make it again. 

It is a moist, rich cake - but not overly so.  That makes it a good recipe for topping with a decadent frosting, or even dusted with powdered sugar.  It becomes more moist the longer it stands.  With a cake this size, it was in my kitchen for over 2 weeks through the Christmas holidays.  We chipped away at it, and it was more moist every time we had a little slice.  

Moist Chocolate Layer Cake  
(by kingarthurflour.com)

2-1/4 cups flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1-3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter, very soft
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup milk
1/2 cup water
4 large eggs

Prepare your pans first.  This recipe works well with either of these options:  three 8" rounds, two 9" rounds, one 9" x 13" pan, or two muffin tins (24 cupcakes).  Preheat oven to 350°.

Place a fine mesh strainer over a large mixing bowl.  Measure in all the dry ingredients.  Sift/shake into the bowl to eliminate lumps (this was faster than I anticipated and worked well)

*Key to success with this recipe is having your milk, butter, and eggs at room temperature.  You can speed this up by placing your eggs in warm water for about 5 minutes, and also heating your milk briefly in the microwave (about 20-30 seconds)

Add the butter and mix at low speed for about a minute.  Now add the oil and continue mixing until it resembles coarse sand.  

Combine the water, milk, and vanilla - adding all at once to the dry ingredients.  Mix for about 1 minute, then scrape bowl and mix 30 seconds more.

Now add the eggs one at a time, scraping the bottom and sides of bowl often.  Batter will be thin.  Transfer batter to prepared pans, smoothing in the pan with an offset spatula.  For cupcakes, measure a heaping 1/4 cup into each well.  Bake about 34 minutes for 9" x 13" pan, 28 minutes for 9" layers, 24-26 minutes for 8" layers, 21-23 minutes for cupcakes.

Cake is done when top springs back when touched lightly with finger in center.   The cake will begin to pull away from the sides as well.  Allow to cool, then decorate as desired.

Peppermint Cream:  Whip heavy whipping cream until stiff peaks form.  Top slices with cream as desired, and garnish with crushed peppermint candy.  Serve immediately.

Crazy Cake (in a blender)

This recipe has been around the block several times and continues to be the favorite birthday cake recipe of each of my kids.  It’s hard to improve on a favorite, but I did try something new with it.  The past year I’ve adapted it to assemble quickly and easily in my blender.  Easy to make, and now easy to clean up.

This isn't a show-stopper cake - you won't find it on Food Gawker or similar sites.  But it IS in my family recipe book - and all my kids now make it for THEIR kids.  So I've decided to document it here for sentimental reasons.

Not the classiest cake - but my son didn't turn it down for his birthday last week.

It’s hard to find another cake recipe that is as successful as this one.  I’ve heard it called several names.  For instance, have you heard of “Wacky Cake”, “Depression Cake”, “Three Hole Cake”, “Joe Cake”, “War Cake”, and even “Happy Valley Cake”?  So many names - but it is basically a moist chocolate cake made without butter, eggs, or milk.  

This recipe is the one that has the most splashes, spills, and post-it notes stuck to the page.
I've made it in several sizes - from sheet cakes, tiny rounds, and the "grand-daddy" size pan.

When I was a 4-H’er (back in the day) - my friend and I won at State Demonstrations with this recipe.  We mixed the dry ingredients, made three depressions in the mixture - then added vanilla, vinegar, and oil into each of them.  We finished by pouring the water over the whole thing and mixed it up.  (We looked so spiffy in our matching aprons)

Mixing the dry ingredients first is helpful, but there's a better way to do it...

I have changed how I mix this up over the years.  I used to add about half the water to the dry ingredients and mix it until smooth to avoid lumps, then add the remaining water last.  But now I use my Blendtec to do the job.  

The first time I used the blender method, I pulsed the dry ingredients first before adding the liquids.  It worked, but it took a lot of scraping the sides down.  Then I found a better solution.  Liquids mixed first, then add the sugar, and lastly the remaining dry ingredients.  Bingo.  So simple.  

Clean-up is easy with a blender also.  Just a few squirts of dish detergent and a few cups of water - pulse till clean, and then rinse in hot water.  Done.

For the Crazy Cake recipe, and instructions for making it in your blender - go to:
www.changeabletable.com

  

Summer Sheet Cake

So... I’m sure you are curious about the word “summer” in a cake recipe.  Technically, you could make this any time of year.  But summer is when you don’t have to pay a lot for zucchini.  This ingredient bumps the classic “Texas Sheet Cake” up a few notches.  You will love it.

If you aren’t using your zucchini for savory dishes - you are most likely making them into zucchini bread.  I prefer cake to zucchini bread.  I have several recipes for chocolate zucchini cake - all slightly different.  

The reason I think this is my new favorite is because of how much easier it is to mix.  The cocoa is added almost dead last - just before folding in the zucchini.  You also mix your leavenings (baking powder, baking soda) into the liquid ingredients, instead of sifting them with the dry ingredients.  I really like those changes.

You can make this into a large 9” x 13” cake if you wish, but it would make a great thin Texas Sheetcake (style) cake baked in an 18” x 13” pan.  The only thing you would need to do - and this is just my preference - is to double the frosting ingredients.    

Most Texas Sheetcakes are fairly dry cakes - very few of them contain eggs, and the frosting is too thin (in my opinion).  This recipe has several things going for it.  Eggs, vegetable oil PLUS butter, chocolate chips, zucchini, and your choice of buttermilk, sour cream, or yogurt.  I used yogurt - it was terrific.  

The frosting (which I googled and found that way) has a few flaws the original way I made it.  Boiling together the butter, cocoa, and milk is asking for lumps.  Make sure you melt the butter, add the cocoa, and THEN add the milk before bringing it to a boil.  Disperse the cocoa first into the butter - and you’re good.

This type of frosting has to be spread on while the cake is hot.  It sets up to resemble really soft fudge if you let it cool before spreading.  Which would be disastrous to your fantastic cake.  Your cake does not have to be hot, just the frosting. 

For the recipe, go to:
www.changeabletable.com

Easy "Wedding" (Style) White Cake

It’s hard to come up with a pure white cake when you make it from scratch.  All those things that make a made-from-scratch cake delicious will turn the batter yellow (egg yolks, butter, etc...)  This cake - although not white as the driven snow - was more white than any I’ve made before, and it was delicious. 

I have a hard time respecting any recipe made with a boxed cake mix, but I thought this one was worth a chance.  It looked moist and had a fine texture in the photos, so I decided to try it in a set of torte pans I recently bought.

A great white cake plays an understated supporting role in so many desserts.  Without this base layer, you wouldn’t have Boston Cream Pie, Lemon Torte, “Poke” Cake, Strawberry Shortcake, etc...  It isn’t the element that gets noticed as much as the fillings & garnishes - but it’s important that it complements them.

With the additional ingredients in this recipe, you can hardly detect a “cake mix” flavor at all.  I added vanilla and almond extract, and no additional  shortening was added - although it did call for a mere 2 Tbs canola oil.

The cake was really moist and had just a hint of heavenly almond flavor.  With frosting, it is the best white cake I’ve ever had.

I used these torte layers to come up with an over-the-top double chocolate cake.  The white cake layers showcased each type of chocolate very well.  Chocolate ganache in the center, and white chocolate ganache on top - then capped with a yummy chocolate frosting that had the right consistency to flow down the sides of the cake.  

Try this recipe to make about 36 white cupcakes, a 9” x 13” oblong cake, or two 9” or 10” layer cakes.  

You'll find the recipe at:
www.changeabletable.com

Old Fashioned Brown Sugar Oatmeal Cake / Cupcakes

This cake reminds me of the baked items sold at the old Relief Society Bazaars held in the park on July 4th (wayyyy back in the 60’s!)  Extra moist, and topped with a caramel/coconut/pecan frosting - my Dad really loved cakes like this.  Later, it became a favorite of my husband.  Coconut lovers - this is for you.

I promised my kids several times, and now I’m following through.... I’m posting some family favorites from our own cookbook.  This type of cake  is a trend that ended years ago - but if you’re close to my age, you’ll remember it.

I had to bring a cake to a meal following a funeral last week - and I remembered this recipe.  They requested a frosted, plain-jane 9” x 13” cake-mix type of cake.  (I can’t think of anything worse than that!)  It needed to be in a disposable pan (a great idea - saves returning everyone’s dishes) - but I decided to take just a BIT of the batter and turn it into two little cupcakes so I could show you how good it is.

Since you use quick oats - there isn’t any precooking involved here (other than pouring hot water over the oats).  This cake comes together really fast - and it’s even better served warm.  That makes it the perfect recipe for when you ALMOST forgot to take it to the church on time!

The part my husband loved was the caramel coconut frosting.  He didn’t even care if it had NUTS - but it’s almost a crime to forget those.  

Serve this with a scoop of ice cream while it’s still warm (or even re-warm it in the microwave, and it’s just as good)  It’s moist and never dries out - even gets better with age.  I wish I could remember where I got this recipe, but it’s a keeper.

For the recipe, go to:
www.changeabletable.com