CARROT CAKE

I have decided that my next project will be to make a good carrot cake. I never really liked carrot cake until some friends got married a few months ago and had carrot as their wedding cake. It was absolutely delicious, and I’ve been obsessed ever since. The only problem is that traditional carrot cake is SOOO bad for you! There’s tons of sugar, refined flour, shortening, and even cream cheese. It’s just a heart attack waiting to happen! I made a recipe out of a natural baking cookbook a few months back, and it was just bad. It was dry, mostly tasteless, and flat. Hence, my new quest is to develop a good recipe for carrot cake. I think this will probably involve using different fruits to get the right texture.

One ingredient I have learned to love in baking is applesauce. Applesauce is great for baking because it’s so versatile. It’s sweet enough to replace a lot of the sugar in a recipe, but also contains ample quantities of pectin, which acts as a binder. Thus, it can also replace shortening in a recipe. And applesauce, more so than flax, tends to keep baked goods more moist (although not as moist as oil). So, I think applesauce will play a key role in my carrot cake adventure. I also plan to experiment using pineapple. We’ll see how it works out.