Hello there, I’m going to show you today how to
make this oh so delicious Gluten-Free Carrot Cake that will not only outshine its glutenous cousin
but will fool anyone to think it’s the real deal. There are many things you can do with carrots
during lockdown you can start playing Carrot Jenga or make a carrot cake. I never knew what
a carrot cake is growing up in Germany. I grew up in the prehistoric time where we
didn’t have cell phones internet and social media.
I think it is now where we’re in the fiber
optic internet period of earth that everybody knows what a carrot cake is. I did fall in love
with carrot cake when I was living in New York and certainly had to come up with my own recipe
just after eating thousands of carrot cakes and compared 150 recipes and, it is a very good
recipe. You’re using it at your own risk. Matt and I have brought this carrot cake to our offices
and suddenly everybody storms to the cafeteria and we have started timing how fast the carrot cake
gets inhaled. Let’s get started on this recipe. I need for this recipe 400 grams or
3 and 2/3 of a cup of grated carrots. Unfortunately I forgot to buy them the supermarket
grated, so I’m gonna quick peel them and shred them in my food processor and I’m gonna add sixty
milliliter or four tablespoon of fresh lemon juice to the carrots and mix the lemon and the carrots.
I’m gonna let the lemon juice soak into the carrots and in the meantime start working on
mixing the flours.
Let’s measure the flour combo for the carrot cake. You want to measure
100 grams which is 2/3 cup of Sorghum flour, 40 gram or a quarter cup of sweet rice flour, 40
gram of a quarter cup of white rice flour, 40 gram which is a quarter cup of potato starch and 40
gram which is one-third cup of tapioca starch, to the flour we’re gonna
add half a teaspoon of salt one and a half teaspoon of nutmeg half a teaspoon of ground cloves 2 tbsp of cinnamon as rising agent, we’re using 2 teaspoons of
baking soda which is also called bread soda and 2 teaspoons of baking powder.
I’m
going to put aside for now the dry measured ingredients. I’m going to get started in
making the batter for the carrot cake. For that I’m going to measure 200 grams which is about
1 cup of dark brown sugar which will add a very nice caramelized flavor to the cake. Now we’re
gonna add 200 gram or one cup of white sugar. I’m also adding 300 gram of oil and I
normally use either sunflower rapeseed oil because it has no flavor. Last but not least
I’m going to add 4 medium sized eggs at room temperature to the mixture. With a cheap mixer I’m
going to quick blend all the ingredients together. You can also do it with a whisk in case you don’t
have a mixer available. For added flavor I’m adding 2 tbsp of vanilla extract and yes that’s
surprisingly a lot of vanilla extract in a batter. Now I’m adding all the dry ingredients, in other
words, the flour and the spices to the batter. To give the cake a little bit more crunch, I
want to add 125 grams or 4.5 ounces of crushed pecans or walnuts.
Now you can certainly buy them
crushed but in case you don’t have them handy, measure 125 grams of whole nuts, add them to a
plastic bag and crush them with your rolling pin. Add the crushed nuts to the batter. Now I’m adding
the 400 grams of carrots to the batter as well. I’m gonna try to avoid adding the lemon juice
which is collected at the bottom of the carrot bowl to avoid making the cake too soggy. With
the spatula I’m gonna steer and blend all the ingredients together. I’m gonna prep my baking
pan and add a paper liner. I’m ready to pour my cake into a 8 inch cake pan which is about 20
centimeter that will make a pretty tall cake. We’re talking about almost 3.5 inches tall which
is about 7 centimeters. So if you want a cake which is not quite as tall you may want to use a
9 or 10 inch cake pan instead and the baking time will be also much less.
To have a tasty carrot
cake you don’t need to make three layered carrot cakes. So I want to show you some simple ways and
for that I’m going to make some carrot cake in a baking pan and this one is 13 by 9 inches. I’m
going to line the baking pan with some parchment paper and with the scissors I’m going to cut
the few slits to make sure I can easily fold the paper. I also use just half the recipe for the
baking pan. I’m going to put a batter into the baking pan and put both cakes into the oven.
I am
baking now both carrot cakes the temperature will be 350 degree fahrenheit which is 175 degrees
celsius the cake round I will be baking for 45 to 60 minutes while the baking sheet will be 30
minutes to 45 minutes. Certainly you want to check if the cake is done before you take it out you can
use the same method as with all the other cakes. Put a chopstick in and pull it out
and see if any batter remains on it. So my cake was overflowing in the cake pan what
is probably because I let it sit a little bit too long outside like 20-30 minutes before I put it in
the oven and all the baking soda and baking powder started to react already but no harm done. So I’m
going to release the cake with my cake spatula and flip the cake onto my cooling rack by placing
the cooling rack on the top of the cake pan and then grab the cake pan and flip it
literally upside down and then I can pull the cake pan off the cake. Lifting the carrot
cake out of baking pan should be much easier. Just firmly grip the parchment paper and lift it
onto the cooling rack.
I’m going to put both cakes aside and let them cool down in the meantime.
I’m going to prepare the candied carrots for the decoration of the carrot cake with the potato
peeler. I’m going to cut very thin carrot stripes and place them in a pot. I’m going to add 100
grams or a quarter cup of sugar to the pot and 120 milliliter which is about half a cup of
water. I’m gonna heat up the water and the sugar which is a simple syrup and the carrots and let it
come to a simple boil.
I let the carrot boil for about 15 minutes. I’m going to fish the carrots
out of the boiling simple syrup with my chopsticks but you can use tongs forks anything you can find
to fish them out and place them on a baking sheet which is lined with parchment paper. You want to
separate the carrot stripes as much as possible. The carrots go back into the oven now for like
30 minutes at 225 degrees fahrenheit 100 degrees celsius to dry out. I have to work very fast
when the carrot stripes come out of the oven because they will dry out and become rigid within
10-20 minutes. I’m going to take my chopstick and roll the carrot stripes around them to make carrot
curls or I keep them straight and just let them dry for my cake decoration while my carrots are
drying. I’m going to start working on my frosting. I’m going to add one stick of butter or 113
gram of butter at room temperature into a bowl. I add 225 grams or 8 ounces of cream cheese
at room temperature.
Now I do prefer to use philadelphia because they added enough chemicals
to it that it’s a much stiffer cream cheese than than many generic brands and that helps with
making a much stiffer frosting and keeps holding the shape better. While I’m blending the cream
cheese and the butter I’m gonna add 600 grams or three cups of powdered sugar or icing sugar. I
keep on blending until the icing is well combined. What can happen if the cream cheese and
the butter are not at room temperature and are a bit too cold that you will have butter
clumps in your icing. What you got to do then is you put it in a microwave just for a few seconds
to melt the butter.
Now the icing will be very liquid and you’re probably gonna freak out. Just
put it back into the fridge and the icing and the butter will harden again and your icing will be
fine. I’m also adding two teaspoons of vanilla extract to the icing just to give it a little bit
of a vanilla hint and mix the icing one more time. Assuming my cake is now cold and my icing is
solid again, I’m going to make now the first carrot cake version. I’m going to take half of
the carrot sheet cake and just put frosting on it and with the cake spatula I can try to create
some patterns on the top of it to make it look pretty. But if I want to impress someone
and make it look a little bit fancier what I can do is I take a biscuit cutter and cut out carrot
cake grounds and treat it like a cupcake and add some frosting on the top.
Add another carrot cake
round and pipe one more layer of frosting on it or you serve it as a single cake round. I
mean all of them are pretty and very delicious but for those moments where I really
have to show off my baking chops I’m going to make the three layered carrot cake.
I’m going to spread a little bit of cream cheese frosting on the top of my cake bottom to make sure
my cake doesn’t slide around. I can’t forget to remove the cake liner because this is like surgery
right you don’t want to find a random scalp in your tummy after getting your appendix removed.
And with a very long and sharp chef’s knife I want to separate the cake into three different layers
and put two layers aside. I’m gonna spread about one quarter inch or one centimeter of cream
cheese onto the first layer I’m gonna place now the second carrot cake layer on the top of the
cream cheese frosting.
I’m gonna add now another quarter inch or one centimeter of cream cheese
frosting and now I’m gonna add the third cake layer on the top of the cream cheese frosting.
Okay I was a little bit impatient. I didn’t wait until the cake is completely cooled down
and the cream cheese frosting is stiff enough. So I have a little bit of a wobbly cake situation
going on but I can all correct that. So right now I’m just gonna do the crumb layer what that means
is I’m gonna cover the cake completely with cream cheese frosting and just make sure that all the
crumbs stay inside the cake. The cake doesn’t look pretty yet but that’s okay. I’m going to put
the cake either in the fridge for like one or two hours or into the freezer for 10-20 minutes so the
butter and the frosting hardens up.
Now I’m gonna take my cake out of the fridge or the freezer and
put it back onto the turntable and with a spatula or cake spatula add cream cheese frosting to the
edges and the top of the cake and start smoothing out the edges. If I still have a leaning cake
situation going on at this time, it’s the right moment to push some of the layers back that are
nicely aligned again to get this very smooth looking cake. I’m going to add some frosting
and then again remove it and even it out with the cake spatula. When the cake is almost even I’m
gonna use a cake scraper at the edges of the cake to make sure it’s a nice clean edge. With the cake
spatula I’m gonna make sure I even out the top of the cake and may even create some patterns to make
it look nice and pretty. As final touch I’m going to lay out the candied carrots on the top of
it just to make it look a little bit prettier. And I’m going to add for my smaller cakes a
candied carrot curl on the top of the frosting. I put in the video description ingredients the
amount of ingredients and where you can buy the gluten-free flours and if you like the video
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upcoming videos see you in the next one.
Bye..
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