Did you know that there is a World Carrot Museum? I know, right? I suspect that it’s only a virtual museum and exists only online, but even so… a Carrot Museum is nothing to sniff at. I dare say not every vegetable has its own museum, virtual or otherwise, though I’ve not searched too hard to verify this alleged ‘fact.’ So I doff my cap to the humble carrot right here and now. More power to you, my little orange friend!
I came across this jewel of information when I was googling the origins of carrot cake, which I freely admit is my preferred way of ingesting them. It would appear that Carrot Cake evolved from medieval carrot pudding, which I’m guessing wasn’t a patch on today’s orange extravaganzas given the scarcity of ingredients back then. And electricity. And basic sanitation, now that I come to think of it. Makes you wonder why you’d cook at all.
So it’s fascinating to me to see how things developed over centuries of taste and culture. If you feel the same way by all means visit the virtual carrot museum to see gems like this recipe from 1827.
Word is that as the carrot pudding became the Carrot Cake, as refined ingredients changed and developed and we started to produce lighter cakes and less, well, orange concrete blocks. European powers promoted it an a nutritious but luxuriant option in times of war and limited rations. I have no idea what the carrot production numbers were back then but I’ve never heard of a carrot famine and even my own limited gardening ability can produce enough of the little blighters that I could keep Bugs Bunny in stock.
The USA later appears to have adopted Carrot Cake as a favourite dessert, with the old fellow finding fame after World War II. As so often happens, over production of tinned carrots after the war led to innovation and advertising, and an American appetite for Carrot Cake.
I tell you, those things just never go away. The addition of a rich cream cheese icing – ahem, frosting – didn’t hurt either. It's one of my favourite things. The one I've made here has three good layers of it. You know what they say - three layers is better than one.
It’s popularity persists now, even in the face of boutique carrots that come in purple and white – though I hear that this was once the natural carrot colour and somehow we’ve developed the orangey goodness over many, many years of agriculture.
I recently made the mistake of adding purple carrots to a rather delicious casserole, only to have the whole thing turn a muddy purpley-black. It tasted perfectly fine, but it was difficult to convince my dinner guests that I wasn’t trying to poison them. Where is the trust?
So in celebrating the humble carrot, and in wanting to use up the last of the vegetables that were slowly dying in my most inappropriately named ‘crisper’, I’ve made a carrot cake. I thought about reproducing the recipe here so that you could read it without making another click of the mouse, but I’m hungry and I’m lazy so I’m just going to give you a link to the recipe that I list as my favourite. Here it is
Of course you can change it to suit your own tastes, but I would always recommend adding the pineapple. Yes, yes it’s a travesty of you’re a carrot cake purist. But hey, if you are really that traditional about it you could go back to eating the concrete carrot puddings of medieval times and then you’d really reconsider. In the meantime, enjoy this one.