If you're making a carrot cake recipe from scratch, follow these tricks to avoid crunchy carrots.
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Carrot cake is usually dense with a moist consistency. For some, biting into a crunchy carrot in their slice of cake can ruin the delicious experience and make the cake less appealing.
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To avoid crunchy carrots in carrot cake, you have to soften them before adding them to the batter — and there are a few ways to do this.
Select crisp, bright carrots and rinse them under cool water, while scrubbing to remove dirt.
Use a vegetable peeler to remove the carrot's outer layer, working from the top to the tip of each carrot, and then cut off the tops of the carrots with a sharp knife. Discard the tops and peelings.
Select the finest holes on a cheese grater and shred the carrots carefully.
Use the grated carrots in your carrot cake, as they soften quickly during the baking process.
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Tip
Alternatively, you can use a food processor to quickly shred carrots. Just attach a shredding blade to a food processor and pulse the carrots until they're fully grated. This is probably the quickest, best way to grate carrots for carrot cake.
How to Mash or Puree Carrots for Carrot Cake
If you don't like the consistency of grated carrots in carrot cake, you can forgo the shredding process and make carrot cake with pureed carrots.
Cut the carrots to 1-inch sections after peeling them and removing their tops.
Place the cut carrots in the boiling water and allow them to cook for 10 to 20 minutes, or until a fork easily pierces them.
Drain the water and transfer the carrots to a large mixing bowl.
Use a potato masher, or the back of a fork, to mash the carrots to a smooth consistency. Alternately, transfer the carrots to a food processor and pulse them until they form a smooth puree.
Use the cooked, soft carrots in the cake as directed by the recipe.
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Tip
For a quick carrot puree, you can also use carrot baby food in place of the cooked carrots.
A Simple Carrot Cake Recipe
Note that you can make this recipe low-calorie with light oil and a sugar substitute — but note that using a sugar substitute (like stevia or Splenda) can alter the consistency.
Things You'll Need
9-by-13-inch cake pan
Oil or cooking spray
Eggs
Vegetable oil
White sugar
Vanilla
All-purpose flour
Baking powder
Ground cinnamon
Carrots
Pecans
Toothpick
Cooling rack
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and coat a 9-by-13-inch cake pan in a thin layer of oil or cooking spray. You can use a light cooking spray to cut calories.
Blend four eggs, 1 1/4 cups of vegetable oil, 1 1/2 cups of white sugar and 2 teaspoons of vanilla in a bowl. Stir in 2 cups of all-purpose flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder and 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon.
Add 1 1/2 pounds of carrots along with 1 cup of chopped pecans. So long as the carrots are grated or pureed, they will soften as the cake bakes in the oven.
Pour the batter in the pan and bake the carrot cake for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick poked in the center comes out clean. Do not open the oven halfway through the cooking process — this can cause the center of the cake to sink.
Allow it to rest in the cake pan for 10 minutes, and then turn it out on a rack to cool completely before icing or cutting. If the cake doesn't fall from the pan when you turn it on a cooling rack, try sliding a butter knife around the edges of the pan to loosen it.
Tip
Place the cooled cake in an airtight container and refrigerate it to prevent spoilage. If you use cream-based icing, refrigeration is particularly important.
If your carrot cake broke apart when you removed it from the pan, place it in bowls and top with icing, syrup or frosting for an appealing dessert.
Place a box grater on a cutting board.Using a downward motion, scrape the pointed end of the carrot along the large holes of the box grater. Be careful to keep your hands and fingers out of the way! Repeat this shredding motion until you reach the last 2 inches of each carrot.
The main difference between shredded and grated carrots is the size and appearance of the results. Shredded carrots typically look like long, thin strips while grated carrots are much smaller, almost crumb-like.
This method uses a simple vegetable peeler, a knife, and a fork. Use the fork to stabilize one end of the carrot, and then use the peeler to peel extra-thin slices of carrot onto a cutting board. Once you have thin carrot strips, use a sharp knife to cut the strips lengthwise into shreds.
We get it: Shredding carrots with a box grater can be pretty time-consuming (and food processors are pricey). If you want a method that's speedy but won't break the bank, try a mandoline with a grating surface. Just peel your carrots, cut off the ends and shred away!
Over a cutting board, run the peeler in a downward motion starting at the larger end of the carrot and ending at the pointed end of the carrot. Just like you would if you were going to peel it. It will make long thin strips. Then you can run your knife over them and cut them down to small thin pieces.
This happens when the carrots are exposed to air for long periods of time when they're not tightly sealed in a bag or container. Luckily, this white film is perfectly safe. If you can't mentally stomach them at this point, cook them!
The cooking time for shredded carrots varies depending on the method you choose. Stir-frying typically takes around 5-7 minutes, while boiling or steaming may require 3-5 minutes. Roasting shredded carrots can take about 15-20 minutes.
It's true that carrots are the star of the show, but aim for finely grated pieces rather than chunky. The finer you grate the carrots, the more evenly they will be distributed throughout the cake (for the perfect texture), and the more evenly the cake and the carrots will bake.
Carrots contain pigments that are sensitive to changes in pH balance. When the shreds of carrot come into contact with the alkaline baking soda, a chemical reaction takes place that causes the pigments to change color. Ipso facto, green carrots!
THE BOTTOM LINE: We consider grated cheese to be the fine gratings of a hard cheese such as Parmesan made with a rasp-style grater. The larger strands of shredded cheese are made on a box grater, often from soft cheese such as cheddar or mozzarella.
Freshly Shredded Carrots: My #1 tip for carrot cakes is to shred whole carrots at home. Do not use packaged pre-shredded carrots because they are hard and dry. You need about 4 large carrots for this recipe. And when you grate them, you'll notice how wet they are.
Because a carrot's skin isn't as thick as other root vegetables (like potatoes) or winter squashes, carrots are perfectly safe and delicious to eat without peeling so long as they are properly cleaned. When it comes down to it, peeling carrots or keeping the skin on is a matter of personal preference.
While you might like to use the shredder on a food processor, you wouldn't achieve a small enough grate. If the pieces of carrot are too large, they won't distribute evenly, nor will they soften during cooking. This will have disastrous consequences for the moisture and texture of your carrot cake.
You can use frozen carrots to make carrot cake, but you need to shred them before freezing — use the same process as above but be sure to peel the carrots before shredding and blanch them for less time. Here are a few recipes to get you started.
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